


We're not pure of heart, but we're sure of aim

by frith_in_thorns



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: AI Rights Crusade, An endless amount of angst-filled conversations, Angst for everyone, Artificial Intelligence, Bad Decisions, Deal-with-it rather than fix-it fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Heists, Hurt/Comfort, LLF Comment Project, Low-key alcohol issues, Mostly gen with some low-key ships, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Finale Fic, References to past Kepcobi, minlace, multiple POVs, vague diversions into political drama, workplace drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-03-25 05:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 52,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13827867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frith_in_thorns/pseuds/frith_in_thorns
Summary: Going home is never simple, even when home exists. Sometimes it doesn't. For the Hephaestus survivors, "home" is no guarantee of comfort, or even safety, and there's still Goddard Futuristics to contend with. And a brand-new person named Miranda.Now complete.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and thank you for reading! This is pretty much the fic of my heart, so I do hope you enjoy the ride. Updates will be on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Extremely helpful beta feedback was provided by Jabberwocky/threefolddefencespeech. The title is a lyric from a song by The Mechanisms.
> 
> This fic is a lot of my post-canon feelings. (Not all of them by any means.) I'm usually in favour of preserving canon ambiguity, but I'm pinning down one very particular plot and direction here. It's by no means my only or even my definitive headcanon, but it's one I thought would be interesting to explore.
> 
> I have a "choose not to warn" label on this fic, which is because I don't want to give away things which may or may happen during the plot. I can tell you, however, that there is NOT any sexual assault or graphic violent/sexual content. I'm generally aiming for the canon's level of...stuff. There's also hurt/comfort, because I'm me. I'll be adding more tags as I go.
> 
> And… sorry about the prologue. Stick with me?

**Prologue**

She couldn't keep up the breakneck speed she was pushing her car to maintain — not on a road so winding and badly surfaced. Every bump and rut sent a rattling jolt through her bones and a worrying screech through the suspension. The inevitable steep descent was somewhere ahead.

Her pursuer had a better car. And better driving skills at high speed. He could have smashed her off the road a dozen times, but instead he stuck to her tail, forcing her to keep up the pace.

She finally took a turn too tightly. Minkowski realised it the instant it happened, felt the front wheel skid and then slip, felt the moment when there was no escaping the centrifugal force. She spun the steering wheel desperately but it was already too late. She knew it as the right-hand side of the car lifted, and the front left wheel twisted on the very edge of the asphalt and wavered over the slope for an endless instant before gravity, inevitably, won.

The car rolled, and smashed, and pummelled down into the trees.

After the crash, a ringing silence.

Minkowski opened her eyes. She thought she was right-way up. She didn't know if she could move, but she felt that if she tried she might shatter.

She fought to take a breath. Another.

Then she heard, over the pounding of her pulse, the crunch of footsteps.

The man stopped beside her shattered windscreen. She could barely see more than his silhouette, dark against the light and blurring at the edges.

She blinked rapidly, trying to bring him into focus.

He came round to her side of the car. Through the broken window she made out more details. Wearing black. A pale scruff of beard.

A black-gloved hand rifled briefly through the shards of glass that were scattered on the seat and on her lap. Minkowski tried to move, to do _something_ , but her efforts only made her start to slip out of focus again.

He selected a larger piece of glass, and measured an angle with it through the air.

Minkowski choked out a bare syllable.

He sliced the glass through the side of her neck.

Minkowski felt the cut as — cold. Deep, numbing cold, and then a warmth spilling down her throat and over her clavicle as darkness wrapped around.

She lost sight. She lost all awareness of her killer.

It was fast. She bled out.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

The sight of Earth through the Urania's windows, green and blue and white, was enough to tear their hearts out. They could have stood and stared at it forever. But there was no time to waste, so they couldn't.

"Are you ready?" Minkowski asked. "Both of you?"

"I think so," Miranda said. She folded her hands together, locking her fingers in place. "Yes. Hera?"

"Yes?" Hera sounded less sure.

"Hey," Lovelace said. "We practised. Okay? You'll be just fine."

"And if that doesn't reassure you, nothing will," Jacobi said.

Miranda shot him an anxious look.

"Are you trying to get kicked off the bridge?" Minkowski asked. "If not, shut up."

Jacobi rolled his eyes, but did quiet down.

"I'm hailing now," Hera said. "The line's opening."

"Yes?" a male voice said, over the speakers. No identifying information. This was a line purely for people who already know whom they were calling.

"Good afternoon," Hera said, tersely. "This is Dr Miranda Pryce, on board the USS Urania. I'm transmitting my retinal scan for verification."

There was a pause while the data was sent and received. "Dr Pryce," the man said. "Thank you for verifying your identity. I expected to hear from —"

"Is this a secure channel?" Hera interrupted.

"Of course."

"Good." She sighed, short and aggravated. "Marcus's project failed. He's dead."

A pause — startled? horrified? "I… see."

"I need a shuttle up here as soon as you can manage, with an AI storage matrix on board, and room for five passengers. Also, get your spin people ready, because last year Marcus in his infinite wisdom declared three of them dead. Somewhat prematurely."

"Uh…"

She sighed in greater irritation. "Don't give me that. I know exactly how much you're paid to be on the end of this line and deal with these kind of problems."

"They're cooperative?"

"Would I have bothered bringing them back otherwise? Don't be ridiculous."

"As you say, Dr Pryce," came the slightly cowed reply. "The shuttle you requested will dock with your ship in approximately four hours."

Hera made an irritated noise.

"I meant, three. In three hours."

" _Glad_ to hear it," Hera said, smugly.

Lovelace made a chopping motion.

"Okay, the line's closed," Hera said. She paused for a moment. " _Oh my god_. Did I really do that? Was that me?"

"You were amazing," Lovelace assured her.

"And hey, no glitching!" Minkowski said. "Not even when you were stressed!"

"That's so cool," Hera said. "Wow. Step one is complete! Thankfully."

"You were really good," Miranda said. She smiled nervously. "I know we practised, but that still sounded… different than I expected."

"Different how?" Hera asked.

"More confident. Just like Dr Pryce on the recordings."

"It's going to be your turn next," Jacobi said. "You think you can pull it off?"

"Jacobi," Minkowski said, warningly.

"It's okay," Miranda said. "I can do it."

* * *

"I want a phone," Minkowski said. "Please." 

If denied, she was ready to scream, to — The depth of her intensity startled her. It had overtaken her on the shuttle, while she had stared out of the window at _her planet_ racing towards her at tens of miles a second. She had spent three years with Earth at a distant remove even inside her own head, and suddenly…

The Goddard exec babysitting them looked worried. "I don't know…"

She took a measured breath. "Look. My husband is a very highly-respected journalist. I'm willing to play along with whatever spin you concoct, and to make certain he does too. _If_ you give me a phone. Now."

She got a phone. And an annex to call from, although obviously she couldn't assume the call would be in any way private.

It took two tries to dial the number.

"Dominik Koudelka's office," the cheerful assistant answered.

"Hi," Minkowski said. She had thought about how to avoid repeating the disaster of the last time she'd tried this. "I'm calling from Goddard Futuristics to speak to Dominik. It's about his wife, Renée Minkowski."

"Is he expecting your call?"

Minkowski couldn't sit; she got to her feet and began pacing. "No. But there's some new information for him. It's very important." She tried to sound as light as possible. She _had_ to be put through.

"I'll ask him," the assistant said. "Hold, please?"

"Of course," Minkowski said.

They'd changed their hold music.

"Hello?" a male voice said, and she almost didn't recognise it for a moment. "This is Dominik."

It took a second for her to remember to reply. "Yes! Hello. Hello."

He sounded wary. "You're calling about…?"

"Dominik," she said. "It's me. I mean, it's Renée. I'm not dead."

There was utter silence on the line. Minkowski's heart was pounding so loudly it seemed likely she wouldn't have heard anything else, anyway. She swallowed. "Please say something."

"I'm not sure I believe you," Dominik said, slowly.

She was pacing tighter and tighter circles. "I know. That's okay. I'm sure stuff will come through the proper channels soon — I mean, I have no idea what Goddard thinks the proper channels are here. But I sort of bullied them into giving me a phone. Don't tell anyone yet."

There was another pause, while she squeezed the phone so hard it was turning her whole hand slowly numb. "Renée. Renée, it's really you?"

"It's me," she said. "I'm — I'll tell you —" She tried again to take a proper breath. "Uh, I need to sit down."

He laughed shakily, while she collapsed onto a chair, her legs just as shaky.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"Canaveral," she said. "It's a long way — I know you're busy —" She closed her eyes, leaned forward around his voice. "Could you —"

"The next flight I can book onto leaves at 4:23," he said. "Don't — Don't go anywhere."

* * *

Jacobi trailed Miranda down a maze of hallways. An intimidation route — there had to be a shortcut. Or maybe the members of this department just had more patience than Special Operations. 

The room they finally arrived in was arranged more like the reception room of a hotel suite than an office. The woman shepherding them gave a couple of bland courtesies and vanished. 

"Sit down, Mr Jacobi," Miranda said.

Jacobi did so. Gravity, it turned out, was tiring. At least his injuries had mostly had time to heal. 

Miranda looked around. Her eyes whirred slightly. 

Jacobi vaguely recognised the man who entered — maybe from an interminable holiday party? One of Cutter's cronies, anyway.

"Dr Pryce," he said. "I've heard —"

"Marcus is dead, yes," Miranda interrupted him. "I should _hope_ you've heard by now. I also hope not too many other people have."

"Of course not," the man replied. (What _was_ his name?) "It's need-to-know right now. Obviously. Until we can get some more details." He looked at Miranda inquiringly.

"What did you know exactly about the details of Marcus's pet project?" Miranda asked.

Jacobi revisited his body's urge to flinch. This could be a mistake. They were banking on Pryce's general misanthropy, but if this was someone who had been in her confidence…

"I knew the plan, of course, although I was never that sold on it. I take it it failed?"

Miranda's smile was steely and precise. "Quite. The psi-wave regulator proved to be less effective than hoped under field conditions. Marcus made contact, but… the negotiation failed."

"The blackmail, you mean."

"How diplomatic."

"I'm a practical man, not a diplomat."

"Of course you are, David," Miranda said. "In blunt language, then, for you — Marcus's device was destroyed. Nearly everyone in the immediate vicinity was killed. Mr Jacobi here suffered near-fatal injuries. The Hephaestus was damaged beyond salvage and fell into the star shortly after we escaped onto the Urania."

"That's… quite a lot to process," David said. (David Clark. Jacobi remembered now.)

Miranda raised her eyebrows at the obvious banality of the statement, and said nothing.

"And the others who came back with you?" Clark asked. "The ones who were supposed to be dead?"

Miranda waved a hand. "They're grateful enough to be rescued that they'll sign whatever NDAs you want, especially if you sweeten the deal a bit so they feel they've won. Warren did his usual good work keeping them out of his _big picture_. We managed to leave them ignorant of what actually went down."

Clark smiled slightly. "Sounds like Kepler. No offence, Mr Jacobi. You were on his team, I believe?"

"I was," Jacobi said, a little stiffly. He was allowed that — it would probably even be expected from him. "Kepler didn't even tell _me_ until it was unavoidable. Frankly, if he'd given my partner and myself a better understanding of what we were actually doing…"

"I'm sure he had his reasons," Clark said. "And what's your assessment of the Hephaestus crew?"

"They're angry," Jacobi said. "They feel like they've been betrayed by Goddard. Frankly, they would quite like to just go back to their lives and never deal with the mention of us again."

"So you think they'll play ball?"

"I think they'll mutter all kind of threats and then choose the option of making all of this go away. Especially if, like Dr Pryce said, they feel like they've won some sort of victory. Let Minkowski's husband write a few angry editorials or something."

"Thank you for your opinion," Clark said. He angled his body slightly towards Miranda, effectively dismissing Jacobi. "Dr Pryce. While I have you here. I know your contract with Goddard is… unique —" Miranda smiled slightly — "and closely tied to your association with Mr Cutter. So." He took a breath, but then seemed unable to find the end of the sentence he'd started.

"What are my plans for the future?" Miranda suggested. 

"Well, in a sense," Clark said. "But more to say, please don't feel you have to rush into a decision. We would hate you to feel pressured."

"Thank you for your concern," Miranda said. "I'll let you know." She glanced at Jacobi, and he gave her a fraction of a nod. She stood up. "Daniel. I have no idea where your friends are right now, but perhaps you should be there when the conditions of their freedom are explained."

"That sounds sensible," Clark said. "I do remember that Mr Jacobi has a very friendly face."

Was that a dig about him and Kepler? Probably. Jacobi wasn't convinced he entirely hid its sting.

"Wonderful," Miranda said. "Do I have to be involved in this mess any longer?"

"I'm sure you don't," Clark said. "In fact, I'll make certain of it."

She nodded. "Oh, and please have the AI from the shuttle delivered to my lab. Don't unbox it." She rose to her feet.

"Your lab here or your home lab?" Clark asked.

"Oh, home. It's developed some very interesting quirks while in deep space. It'll be good to have a project while I, how did you put it, don't rush into a decision."

"Of course," Clark said. Jacobi realised belatedly that Clark was terrified of Pryce but very, very good at hiding it.

"Oh, even better, I'll ride along with it," Miranda said. "That will probably be most… efficient."

"I'll arrange it right away," Clark said. Now that Jacobi was getting the hang of his facial expressions he thought Clark was relieved to be getting Pryce away from him so quickly. And probably also just as scared of what would happen if he didn't manage to persuade her to stay at Goddard. Jacobi rather desperately wanted to get his hands on a copy of her contract.

"Mr Jacobi," Miranda prompted, and he quickly stood up as well.

"I'll ring for escorts for both of you," Clark said. "And I'll join you again shortly, Mr Jacobi, with some terms for the Hephaestus crew to sign. I expect you to make certain that they do."

"You can depend on it," Jacobi promised.

* * *

Lovelace had never been good at keeping her temper, even when she really should — witness her air force career. Looking at the bland faces of the Goddard employees and lawyer now was causing that same pressure to build inside her — a desire to start shouting and throwing things.

She was discovering, though, that when it was more than just her future on the line, the urge was easier to resist.

"A press conference?" Minkowski said. "You can't mean right now."

She was white-faced. Lovelace was worried about her. Minkowski had been unable to do the physical exercise routines the others had gone through on the Urania while she healed from the bullet wound and abdominal surgery; her adjustment to gravity had to be tough.

"No, not immediately," the smooth-talking man Jacobi had introduced as David Clark said. "In a couple of days, once you've had time to recover. We'll be taking some photos of you reconnecting with your loved ones, too — just standard issue things."

Lovelace's stomach turned. She was _in no way_ ready to meet… her… parents. Though at the same time her false memories told her that she _did_ want to see them; that she missed them desperately.

"We'll handle the initial contact with them," the lawyer said. "So I must insist you don't make any further phone calls." She paused to frown at Minkowski, who didn't appear to notice.

"Chill out about that," Lovelace said. "We've already been over how her husband promised not to tell a soul about what's going on. Okay?" Although the lawyer didn't really look like the sort of person who ever chilled out.

Doug cleared his throat. "Some of us aren't exactly on the best of terms with our loved ones," he said.

"Well, we certainly don't want to make you feel uncomfortable," Clark said. He nodded to the lawyer, who made a note. "So, back to the NDA."

There was a price for everything, and it turned out that Goddard considered the price for stranding them in space to die, then expecting them to keep their mouth shut about it all, was $20 million each. Plus unlimited health insurance. Actually, the starting offer had been much lower, but the alacrity with which Clark had increased the number meant that Goddard still probably considered themselves to be getting a good deal.

They signed it. They had discussed this beforehand, exhaustively, but Lovelace still had the last-minute urge to refuse to play along. What could they really do?

The answer was horrifyingly simple. They could refuse to let her walk out of there. They could disappear her. Again.

She printed _Isabel Lovelace_ on the dotted line and scrawled her signature next to it. 

(A moment later she realised it was the first time she had ever signed anything. But it had come easily to her hand.)

"Well, that's that out of the way," Clark said, so paternalistic that Lovelace wanted to punch him. "Now, we'll find you some civilian clothes and book you into a hotel nearby. Lieutenant, don't worry, someone will collect your husband from the airport."

Minkowski nodded wordlessly. Lovelace squeezed her hand under the table.

* * *

Dominik hadn't given as much thought as he should about what he'd do after the plane landed, other than get an Uber to the main reception of Goddard Futuristics and refuse to leave until they produced his wife. So it was convenient, as well as unnerving, to be approached by a flight attendant a few minutes before the plane began its final descent and informed that a driver would be waiting for him at Arrivals.

The driver was indeed there. Dominik experienced a moment of paranoia once he was on the road — what if he was actually being driven out of the city to be dumped in the Everglades? — but fortunately they didn't head in that direction. Instead he was eventually deposited outside a hotel, with instructions to give his name at the front desk.

Doing so won him a room key. The whole thing felt somehow over-elaborate. Like a game. He took the elevator and tried to breathe steadily.

The door he knocked on was opened, cautiously, by a tall black woman. "Yes?" she demanded.

"I'm looking for Renée Minkowski," Dominik said. "I'm her husband."

She looked him up and down for a moment longer. "Okay, come in."

It was a suite, not a room, and there turned out to be a whole handful of people inside. Dominik's eyes flicked over each of them. "Where's —"

"Hi," Renée said. She stood holding tight to the doorframe to one of the adjoining rooms.

"Hi," Dominik said.

She straightened; shoulders back, spine pulled taut. Her instinctive reaction when she was nervous. "These are. Uh. My friends. Doug, Jacobi, Lovelace."

"Isabel?" the other woman suggested.

"Isabel?" Renée looked thoroughly taken aback. "Do you _want_ me to call you that?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

Renée stared at her, nonplussed, then turned on one of the men. "Do you want to be introduced as Daniel?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, I absolutely do not."

"O _kay_." Renée crossed her arms, then uncrossed them quickly. "As I was saying, that's Doug, Jacobi, and Isabel Lovelace. And, guys, this is my husband Dominik."

"Nice to meet you," Dominik said. Doug gave him a little wave.

"Minkowski," Isabel Lovelace prompted, after a pause. "Now you take your husband into that room and, y'know, _talk_ to him."

Renée glared briefly at her, and failed to switch it off as quickly as she probably thought she did when she looked back at Dominik. "Um." She took a step backwards, not beckoning him exactly, but making space.

He followed her into the room and shut the door behind him.

Renée perched on the edge of the bed. "I don't really know what to say," she confessed.

"Me neither," Dominik said. He came and sat next to her on the mattress. After a moment she reached out a hand. He took it, almost automatically, and he felt he ought to have some revelation, some shock of contact, but the truth was it was so familiar that it was just… that. Just holding her hand, like he'd done so many times it had stopped being something he particularly noticed.

"Did you get any messages from me?" she asked. "Any at all?"

"Two, the first year," he said. "My birthday, and Christmas. Did you send more?"

"Of _course_ I did!" she said, suddenly sounding almost angry. "I wouldn't —"

"I know," he said, though he hadn't, entirely.

She leaned against him. "I can tell you what happened, but you can't tell anyone else. Nothing except Goddard's official story. Okay? I signed an agreement —"

"What?" he demanded, appalled. "Without having it read by a lawyer first? Or even by me?"

She leaned away from him, very slightly. "You don't understand. You don't know what Goddard is like."

He disagreed, but tried to be patient. "They're just a company, Renée."

"No," she said, "They really aren't. Promise you won't tell anyone until I say you can, and I'll tell you everything. Otherwise I can't."

"I promise," he said, a little hopelessly, since she clearly wasn't going to back down.

She told him. At length, although they emerged back into the main area for room service when her throat started to dry up, and then Isabel and Jacobi joined in too. Doug didn't, but sat soaking up the story with an expression similar to that which Dominik imagined he himself was wearing. He didn't understand why until near the very end.

It was the early hours of the morning when everyone ran out of things to relate. Dominik was sat on the couch with Renée, his arm around her. It had happened quite naturally, and now he didn't want to move.

Doug yawned deeply. "Do you think it's time to turn in?" he said. "Long day."

There was a crash. Jacobi had let go of a mug, in the apparent belief that it would continue hovering where he left it. He swore.

"I think we're all ready for bed if we've started forgetting about gravity," Isabel said. "No, Doug, please _do not_ get up while we're picking up china fragments…"

Renée seemed half asleep already while she changed into the bland pyjamas the hotel provided for guests in dire need of luggage. Dominik couldn't fail to notice, however, that she did this facing away from him so as to hide whatever still-healing scars she carried. He took his cue from her and put on pyjamas himself.

She got into bed, stiffly, and reached to turn out the light. Then she slid out from under the covers again. "I just want to check everyone's all right," she said.

"Okay," Dominik said, because she seemed to be asking permission. He sat up, and watched through the open door as she checked the other two bedrooms, and Isabel on the couch. All the doors got left open, he noticed, including theirs when she finally came back to bed.

In the dark he reached out to her, and she rolled over to curl up alongside him. Just lying there, nothing more, but Dominik found himself trying not to fall asleep in case he woke up and found this was all a dream.

And then when he did wake up, she was gone. But when he padded out into the living area he found she had pulled an armchair up near Isabel's couch and was asleep in that, her back to the main door, where she could see everyone at once if she lifted her head.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hera and Doug aren't "back" anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please do continue letting me know what you think :)

Hera booted up, and the moment she was aware of herself she locked down, systems focusing inward, checking every scrap of code until she was satisfied no one had been inside her, rewriting her, while she was unaware.

Then, finally, she reinitialised her sensors. Those that would connect. Most of them didn't, and that was disorientating and terrifying in equal measure until she forced herself to shut off the missing inputs.

She was limited to a fixed, single-point camera. She struggled again against the automatic panic based on unsourced pattern recognition —

Oh.

This was how she had been brought back from being decommissioned, for her interview with Cutter and Rachel Young.

As soon as she realised that, she could — metaphorically — breathe easier. Because she'd been here before, hadn't she?

Okay, not _here_ here.

…Where _was_ here?

"Hera?" Miranda asked. "Are you receiving me?"

"Yes," Hera said. She was more relieved than she'd expected when her voice came out, clear and unmistakably hers. Well, and Miranda's. "I can't see you."

"Oh, sorry." Miranda stepped sideways, entering Hera's ridiculously limited viewframe. "Is that better?"

"Somewhat," Hera said.

"I'm sorry, I know you don't have most of your capabilities at the moment," Miranda said. "You're still in the boxed matrix. I wanted to check you were okay before trying to transfer you somewhere better."

"And the matrix is…" Hera prompted.

"Oh. It's in… Well, I guess it's my house. I don't think it's owned by Goddard."

"Remind us to make certain of that later," Hera said. "So, everything worked okay?"

"I think so. We're definitely both here, anyway, which I think counts as safe for the moment. Hopefully I softened the Goddard man on the others. Jacobi helped with that."

"Hmm," Hera said, noncommittally. (No one had ever actually told her to stop being hard on Jacobi. He could take it.)

"Pryce's house is AI-wired," Miranda said. "With your help I can transfer you into the mainframe."

"There isn't an AI active already?"

"There was, but I switched it off."

Hera — Well, she couldn't actually _do_ anything, just then. She didn't even get to emotionally respond by pausing a biological function such as breathing. Still, she must have given _some_ indication, or maybe it was only her too-long silence which prompted Miranda to ask, tentatively, "Did I do something wrong?"

"There was an AI like me here," Hera said, "And you just turned them off?"

"But," Miranda said, "it's not like I destroyed it? I just powered it down. Like you've been."

"That was out of _necessity_ ," Hera snapped. "How would you like to be bashed over the head to knock you unconscious every time that it was convenient for someone else?"

"It would have known I wasn't who I'm pretending to be," Miranda defended. "That's what I was thinking about. About it raising the alarm."

"That's not good enough," Hera said. "You're supposed to be _better_ than Pryce, but you're still thinking of us as tools and calling us _it_!"

"I'm sorry!" Miranda said. "I'm sorry. But I still don't see what else I _could_ have done. You don't want me to boot it — _them_ back up, do you?"

"No," Hera admitted. That hurt. It all hurt. Everything was supposed to be _better_ now. "No, I don't. But that doesn't mean… It was still wrong."

Miranda nodded. She looked like she was hurting, too.

* * *

"I'm going out," Jacobi announced.

Strictly speaking, he didn't need to announce it. Hell, he didn't even need to be stuck there with the rest of them at all. He could just leave and not come back.

"Have fun," Lovelace said. Dominik had woken up in a determined mood, and now the others were trying to explain why they absolutely didn't want to blow up their shiny new NDAs while the ink had barely had time to dry.

So Jacobi left. He walked out through the over-marbled lobby and the revolving glass door and into the sunshine, traffic fumes, crowd noise; everything that was instantly familiar.

It took him a moment to get his bearings, and then he started walking. Not that he had an alternative — he had no cash. Something he should have thought about yesterday.

He was used to having two other people to catch it when he missed that type of detail.

The hour it took him to reach his apartment building was a strain on his space-softened muscles. He backtracked around the block, used a stunted tree to lift himself high enough to reach the top of a particular building's porch shelter, and extracted two keys on an unmarked ring from beneath a thick clump of moss. He grinned as he wiped then clean on his shirt. When he'd shared that secret with Maxwell she'd been appalled at him, but you just couldn't beat low-tech solutions.

So. He went to his own apartment and opened up.

An underrated gift of his, Jacobi had always considered, was his ability to not think. He'd managed fine all the way over here determinedly _not thinking_ despite the sensory cacophony he was walking through. And now he entered his apartment like normal, tossed the slightly dirty keys into the bowl on the side, stepped around the worn-out pair of boots which were near the door to remind him to throw them away. All like normal. Coming back here was _normal_.

One of Maxwell's hoodies was draped over the end of the couch.

Jacobi threw himself further into autopilot. He just needed to grab essentials, then he could get out. Cash and cards first. Then he stripped, bundling the Goddard-provided clothes into the empty laundry basket and pulling on the first nondescript shirt and pair of jeans he laid his hands on.

Okay. So what else did he need to take with him?

There were plenty of things in his apartment which he liked. His xbox, his laptop, a few photos, some random gifts and souvenirs he'd accumulated over the years. Nothing, however, that he'd worry about saving if the building was on fire. Nothing he'd especially missed.

The clamouring of thoughts he wasn't paying attention to was getting louder and louder. Jacobi threw a selection of clothes into a backpack, almost at random, and then walked around a few times in case anything else jumped out at him to be included. He picked up his Goddard credentials and Goddard phone, and belatedly remembered to include the wallet of irreplaceable documents, which was his one concession to a filing system. 

It wasn't until he was carefully locking the door behind him that it occurred to him to question his certainty that he was never coming back.

But try as he might, he couldn't shake it. He had gone away, and come back a different person. Someone who no longer lived here.

* * *

"I'm awake," Lovelace said quietly, through the dark. "You don't have to creep around."

"I don't want to wake anyone else up," Minkowski said, just as quietly.

Lovelace switched on one of the small table lamps. The dim glow was only just enough to show her face as she sat up on the couch, pushing the blankets down.

Minkowski got a glass of water and joined her. (She wanted to spend hours watching water run out of the tap and _fall down_.) She accepted a corner of blanket to tuck over her cold feet. "Are you still planning that vacation?" she asked.

"Damn straight," Lovelace said. "That's all that's getting me through the thought of tomorrow's press conference."

"Did you have to bring that up?" Minkowski said. "I've been trying very hard not to think about it."

"And how well is that working out for you?"

"Oh, it's not," Minkowski admitted. "Although it's a break from worrying about Hera and Miranda. And Jacobi." Jacobi had briefly shown up to drop off a couple of burner phones, then vanished again. The number he'd left them with, when Minkowski had attempted to dial it, just reported that his own burner had yet to be turned on.

"Jacobi can worry about himself," Lovelace said.

"Yes, I know," Minkowski sighed. "And I know playing along with Goddard and saying nice things at their press conference doesn't mean we've given up. But everyone's going to think we have, and it feels like they'll be right, a bit."

"We haven't even started yet," Lovelace said. She sat a little more upright. "Don't forget the plan. We get out of Goddard's grip, and we let them think we're harmless. It's called regrouping. None of us is in any state to launch a campaign just yet, but if we wait until the right time…"

"I know," Minkowski said again. She did know, but she still appreciated hearing Lovelace say it out loud.

"What are you doing out here, anyway?" Lovelace asked. "Not that I'm not pleased for the company."

"Dominik's asleep," Minkowski said. And she hadn't been. She had been lying awake next to him until she felt she'd go mad if she didn't get up.

Lovelace nodded like she understood. "Have you talked about what you're going to do after?" she asked. "You know, when we're not _politely asked_ to confine ourselves to a five-star hotel suite anymore."

"No," Minkowski said. "Dominik's tried to. It's not fair that I haven't really let him. But it's just… too much."

"I know what you mean," Lovelace said, although Minkowski was pretty sure she heard some faint disappointment there.

She didn't know how to explain.

* * *

It was very quiet as Doug packed up his minuscule number of possessions. Really he had just the clothes he was wearing, his hotel-provided toiletries, and a shiny new bank card to an account containing (so he'd been told) several thousand dollars. He hadn't opened the bag containing personal effects he had apparently been storing at Goddard, so that was easy too. And he had his new phone, with exactly three numbers in it.

He had no idea where he was going. Clark had kept his word and no one had shown up to hug him awkwardly on the steps of Goddard's elaborate main entrance. He had also gotten off lightly during the press conference itself, overshadowed by the touching stories of family reunion on either side.

The interview had already been playing in the hotel lobby when they'd got back, although none of them had felt the urge to stop and look more closely. And now Renée and Lovelace were gone, and he was… almost gone.

He wandered out onto the street and stood blinking in the harsh Florida sun. It was odd how little any of it _felt_ odd. He knew what a city was; knew what to expect in a city. Knew, for instance, that wandering in pretty much any direction would eventually find him a reasonably-priced motel where he could crash for a while.

Which would defer the question of what he was going to do next, although he wasn't sure that was a good thing. Still, he couldn't stand in front of the hotel all day, so he began the process of wandering.

Before he found a motel he found a park. He sat down on a bench and tipped his head back in the sun.

What did he _want_?

Easy — he didn't want to be on his own.

Insisting to the others that he would be _fine_ while they were swept up by families who had been grieving them hadn't been his smartest move.

He took the phone out of his pocket and considered for a while. Then he selected one of the numbers and dialled.

"What?" Jacobi answered.

"It's Doug. Hi."

"Oh, hi. Have you escaped the media circus yet?"

"Yes, actually. I notice you didn't make it up there."

Jacobi snorted. "Hey, _I_ haven't miraculously come back from the dead. I'm sure Goddard will call me when they want me."

"So you're still working for Goddard?" Doug asked.

Jacobi made a noncommittal noise. "Why are you calling me?"

"I don't know how to find Hera," Doug said. "Do you have any ideas?"

"If you're asking whether I have Pryce's private phone number, I didn't know she even _existed_ until a few months ago," Jacobi said. "I thought we were going to wait for one of them to find a way to get in touch?"

"I know we decided that," Doug said. "I just miss her."

Jacobi sighed heavily. "And why do you expect me to be the one to do something about that?"

"Everyone else is busy?" Doug suggested.

"I think you're actually _more_ annoying than the old Eiffel," Jacobi said. " _Fine_ , I'll help you. Just don't expect this to be a regular occurrence."

"Thanks, I really appreciate it," Doug said, gratefully. "What do I do?"

"Nothing," Jacobi said. "Just keep your phone switched on. If nothing's happened in three hours then give up."

"Where are you?" Doug thought to ask.

"Absolutely nowhere that's any of your business," Jacobi said. "Bye." He hung up.

Doug waited. He was getting good at doing that, fighting against what he suspected was his essentially fidgety nature. At least there was a constant stream of people going past to distract him. Most of them were in bright colours, and he eyed their clothes covetously. He didn't have much of an idea about what his own style might be, but he knew he hated the very plain shirt he was wearing.

His phone rang. _Unknown number_ , the screen said. He answered it anyway. "Hello?"

"Doug? Is that you?"

"Hera!" He was overtaken by an intense surge of emotion. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said. "I'm happy to hear your voice."

"You too," Doug said, which was a considerable understatement. He was so relieved he thought he might burst. "How did you find me?"

"A whole string of coded messages left in the comment sections of news articles about your so-called rescue," Hera said. "That wasn't you?"

"Must have been Jacobi," Doug said. "I asked him to help find you."

"Are you okay?" Hera asked. "How did the press conference go? I've been monitoring it across the internet, of course. It looked awful."

"Oh, it was," Doug agreed.

"So what are you going to do now?"

"That's a seriously good question. I have no idea."

There was a fraction of a pause. "You can come here if you'd like. Miranda says that's fine."

He chuckled. "Two amnesiacs and an AI? Sounds like a great household."

"Is that a —"

"Yes," he interrupted quickly. "It's a yes. Please."

"Good," Hera said. "It's weird. Being somewhere else."

"I miss you too," Doug said.

"Of course you do, I'm your best friend. Right, I'm going to give you a whole load of roundabout instructions. We don't want you to be followed."

Doug glanced around. "You think I'm being followed?"

Hera sighed. "You just looked all around you in the most unsubtle way possible, didn't you? _No_ I don't really think you're being followed, but it's best to be careful. I'll see you soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Hera gets roommates. Jacobi makes poor life decisions.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hera and her two housemates get used to each other. Jacobi makes poor life decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO MUCH, everyone. You're all fab people.

Hera was the one who opened the front door for Doug. Miranda waited well back, out of the way near the stairs. She wanted time to consider her reaction.

"Hi," Hera said, once the door had shut.

Doug dropped a hotel-branded drawstring bag carelessly onto the floor. "Hera!" he said, grinning. "So I guess you're settling in? Are you the house now?"

"I guess so," Hera said. "For the time being, anyway. It's a lot easier than being a space station. Earth has air _everywhere_."

"I hear that's the beauty of it," Doug said. "That and cheeseburgers. Although Lovelace says room service ones don't count."

"I wouldn't really know," Hera said. 

"I guess not. So where's —" He broke off abruptly as he at last noticed Miranda hovering. "Oh. There you are."

"I should have said hello sooner," Miranda said. She came forward.

"You're allowed to lurk in your own home," Doug said. "Also, hello."

"It's not really _my_ home," Miranda said. "It's hers. Pryce's."

Doug grimaced at her in what she hoped was understanding. 

"It's yours," Hera said, firmly.

Miranda shrugged that off uncomfortably, as she had done with all similar remarks. "Doug, do you want a tour? Bring your bag and you can choose a bedroom."

"Yeah, that sounds fun," Doug said, enthusiastically.

He was very appreciative as she showed him around the house, and Miranda enjoyed seeing it through his eyes. When it had just been her she had hardly dared to touch anything, but Doug was unrestrained in gleefully opening cupboards, dropping heavily onto cushioned seats, and flicking switches. "Hera, check this out!" he kept saying, while Hera groaned at him but in a way that suggested she was also enjoying herself.

The house had three spare bedrooms, and Doug chose one after lengthy deliberation. He dropped his small bag of belongings onto the bed. "Hey, do you have any clothes in my size?" he asked.

"In your —" Miranda looked down at herself. "No, I don't think any of Pryce's would fit you."

"I didn't mean _that_ ," Doug protested. "Just that Pryce might have had clothes from a boyfriend or something — What?" he asked, as Hera started laughing.

"I just can't imagine Pryce ever letting someone move in with her," Hera said. "This whole house feels basically unused. Doug, you had more personal items in the Hephaestus comm room than are in this whole building."

Miranda felt oddly ashamed. She looked away.

"Hey, she's not you," Doug said. " _You_ can have a great social life — no one gets to tell you otherwise."

Miranda smiled awkwardly at this attempt to reassure her. "I just can't understand how we're so different," she said. "Aren't I supposed to be basically the same person, without context?"

"I don't think it's as simple as that," Hera said. "You're missing — well, a _lot_ of years of life experience and memories. That's what made her into who she was."

"Even then," Miranda said. She gestured vaguely with a hand. "She was so — driven. Assertive. When I was pretending at Goddard to be her I didn't feel like I was being me at all. I was just doing that — just _pretending_ as hard as I could."

"How can you be certain that's not what Pryce was doing?" Hera asked. "Maybe she was playing a role for so long that it became natural, but inside her there was someone like… you."

Miranda shrugged, unconvinced.

"I just don't think you'd be you if Pryce wasn't also like you in some way," Hera said. "Or was like you in the past. Think about it."

"For what it's worth, I agree with Hera," Doug said.

"See," Hera said, like she'd just won something."

"I'll have to… consider it," Miranda said. She rewound the conversation. "But I'm afraid I still don't have any clothes for you, Doug. You'll have to go to a shop."

"Ooh!" Hera said, suddenly enthusiastic. "Online shopping! I'll show you both how it works. It's _amazing_. The whole internet is amazing. No wonder Goddard keeps its AIs locked down."

"You don't have any money though?" Doug said, in what started as a statement but trailed upwards in a mildly worried way towards the end.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Hera said, with a breeziness that was a bit alarming. "Miranda does."

" _Hera_ ," Miranda snapped.

Doug laughed. "Now that was some classic Dr Pryce right there."

"Calm down, both of you," Hera said. "I'm only teasing, I haven't actually gone on a spending spree. Yet. Although I did get a Netflix account as soon as we decided Doug was coming to stay."

"What's Netflix?" Doug asked. "And also, what's for dinner? I'm starving."

Miranda grimaced. "I found stuff in the freezer to eat before," she said. "Hera helped me cook it, but it didn't turn out that well."

"That was before we hooked me up to the internet," Hera said, cheerfully.

Miranda was already getting tired of hearing about the internet.

"And now you can cook?" Doug asked, sounding impressed.

"No, now I know how to order pizza," Hera said. "And while we wait for it I'll show you Netflix."

* * *

It felt like Lovelace had only just managed to get to sleep, in yet another hotel room, when she was rudely jolted awake by her phone ringing. She snatched it up and answered it without looking, hopefully before it could wake anyone else. "Who is it?" she whispered.

"No one," came the sullen reply.

"Jacobi? Is that you?" she asked, but the line had gone dead.

Lovelace groaned, and got to her feet. She was sleeping on a pull-out bed — there had been an argument over it, but she had remembered her dad's bad back and refused to give in. She squinted across the dark room, but he and her mom seemed to be still sleeping soundly.

She shut herself in the bathroom and dialled back. "Jacobi, what are you playing at?" she demanded, when he picked up.

"Nothing," he said.

"You're the one who called me. Talk, or I'm going back to bed." Probably she should have done that in the first place.

He sighed mournfully, overwhelming the speaker with a rush of static. "Never mind. Shouldn't've."

She frowned at something in his voice. "Wait. Are you _drunk_?"

"Oh," he said. "Yes. Very."

"Are you… okay?"

"No," he said, with surprising calm.

She closed her eyes for a moment. _I'm really going to regret this._ "Are you calling because you want me to come find you?"

There was a long silence. Very long. She realised after a while that he was never going to actually come out and say it. "Where are you?" she asked, finally.

He gave her an address, which was as clear an answer to her previous question as she could have wished for.

Lovelace sighed. "Okay. I'll be… Actually I have no idea how far away that is. But I'll be there soon."

She left the bathroom door open and got dressed in its sliver of light, then wrote a note to leave on her bed. Tried not to feel too guilty about that. Then she left as quietly as she could and found a cab at the stand down the street. 

Jacobi's address was about twenty minutes away. Lovelace got lucky — someone else was entering the apartment building and she tailgated them successfully, rather than having to depend on the buzzer being answered. And the apartment itself wasn't locked, so she didn't bother knocking.

It was much bigger than she'd expected. And nicer — stylishly furnished and not overcrowded. She hadn't pegged Jacobi as having good decorating taste. In fact, he was the thing marring the general effect, slumped on the rug against the couch.

She prodded him with a toe. "Hey. Jacobi."

He stirred. Blinked red-rimmed eyes that slowly focused on her. "Shit."

"Hello to you too." She crouched down next to him. "So, you don't look like you've done anything _too_ stupid."

He smiled mirthlessly. "Huh." He reached for the bottle beside him, but she pulled it out of the way.

"Nope. You called me, which I assume was you trying to cut yourself off."

"Shit," Jacobi said again, with more vehemence.

Lovelace looked down at the almost-empty bottle of scotch in her hand and raised her eyebrows at the brand. "At least you're going for a high-class drunken stupor," she said. From her position she could see now another, similar bottle mostly hidden behind the couch. She revised some of the assumptions she'd made. "Is this what you've been doing all day?"

He shrugged.

"Gotta say, I'm surprised you have all this stashed. I'd have thought it'd be more…" She trailed away. "Oh."

Jacobi turned his head away from her.

"Goddammit, Jacobi. This isn't your apartment, is it? It's Kepler's."

His body shook slightly as he tried to hide a sob.

"Goddammit," Lovelace said again. She sat down properly next to him, and put a hesitant hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

After a minute he looked at her again. This time he didn't try to hide that he was crying, or possibly he was just too far gone. "This sucks," he said.

"Yeah."

"It _all_ sucks."

"I know, Daniel."

"Don't fucking call me that," he said, with no heat to it. 

"It's 2am and I left a nice warm bed for this. I'll call you whatever I like."

Jacobi snorted and reached for the bottle again, forgetting Lovelace had already moved it. "Gimme," he said.

"No."

"Please."

"No."

" _Pretty_ please?"

"Absolutely not, stop asking." She took a swig of it herself, figuring she deserved _something_ out of this. It was good stuff. 

"He's dead," Jacobi said. "They're both fucking _dead_ , and this wasn't supposed to happen."

Wordlessly, Lovelace squeezed his shoulder.

"Why'm I the last man standing? Do you know how — _stupid_ that is?"

Lovelace thought of her own crew. All dead. And she, the soldier, the commander, the one who should have laid down her life to keep them safe, was the only one left.

 _Her_ crew. She had worked hard to think of herself as the woman for whom those things were true. It was easy, now, to fall down well-grooved lines of thought. Her crew, her life, her parents asleep in the room where she'd left them.

"I'm not sure either of us were made for surviving," she said.

* * *

Jacobi woke up and regretted the choice to do so immediately. He fumbled for a pillow to press over his face. He was absolutely certain that he didn't want to know anything at all about the world.

It was quite a long time before he changed his mind enough to roll over and have a look around. Daylight was shining through the open curtains. He wasn't anywhere he recognised, but he didn't feel alarm, so he must have felt okay last night about coming here. He trusted at least some part of his brain to be always alert for such things. 

So. He rolled out of bed, found the bathroom, threw up, and then stuck his face under the cold tap of the sink. After that he gloomily considered the rumpled clothes he'd slept in, but he didn't exactly have a lot of options. 

He went downstairs when he felt he couldn't put it off any longer. 

Doug was in the kitchen, and he raised both eyebrows at the sight of him. "Hello," he said. "Did you sleep well?"

"Shut the fuck up," Jacobi said. "Where's Lovelace?"

"In Brooklyn by now," Hera said. "She didn't stay beyond dropping you off."

"Oh," Jacobi said, with an unaccountably empty feeling. "Did she say anything?"

"About your life choices, or about anything else?" Hera asked. "She said a few things about the former."

"Great," Jacobi groaned. He scrubbed his face. "Is there any coffee?"

"Yeah," Doug said, waving at the coffee maker. "I think there's still some in there."

Jacobi drank it from the jug.

"And we've got like four takeout pizzas in the fridge," Doug said.

Jacobi blinked at him. "Um, why?"

"They looked a lot smaller in the website picture," Hera said, defensively. "I didn't know how many the two of them might want to eat, okay?"

He'd forgotten that they weren't alone. "So, this is her house, then?"

"Miranda's? Yeah."

"Huh." Jacobi drank some more coffee. He was not at all tempted by the idea of cold pizza. "What's she being like?"

Doug waved a hand, vaguely. "Miranda's, um…"

"She's trying really hard," Hera said. "This is all new to her too, remember."

"So you trust her?" Jacobi asked.

"I do," Hera said, definitely. "You should have talked to her more on the Urania, and got to know her better."

"I know she's your friend now," Jacobi said, patiently. "You can't forget, though. She can still be dangerous. If she decided to, she could sink us all."

" _If_ ," Hera said. "And what do you care? You've said plenty of times that you can extract yourself whenever you want."

"I'm just saying," Jacobi protested. "You didn't see her at Goddard. She'd have not trouble convincing anyone to believe her."

"And we saw _you_ at Goddard," Hera shot back. "Sitting side by side with your bosses, a model employee."

" _You_ didn't see that," Jacobi pointed out. He looked hard at Doug, who shrugged at him blandly. "What, am I not trustworthy now?"

"You're the one who started this," Hera said.

With some effort, Jacobi bit back the first remark which leapt to his tongue. Instead he walked over to the sink, gave the jug a cursory rinse, and started a new pot of coffee going. "Are there any painkillers around here?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Hera said. "Where do people usually keep painkillers when they don't have a med lab?"

"In a medicine cabinet?" Jacobi suggested. "In the bathroom, usually."

"I'll take a look," Doug said.

Once he had left the room Jacobi sighed. "Okay, I'm sorry," he said.

"Good," Hera said. "It was uncalled for."

"Did Lovelace really just — go?" Jacobi asked.

"It was four in the morning," Hera said. "I think she had to be up early for the flight."

"I guess." He'd just… Well. It wasn't as if they were actually friends.

"You could call her on the phone if you wanted to talk to her?" Hera suggested.

"No, never mind," Jacobi said. "I suppose we talked last night."

"You could… talk to me, you know," Hera offered. "I was there too."

Jacobi actually did think about it. For a moment. "Not just now," he said. "But… I'm not turning you down out of any — I mean, not because of you being an AI."

"Believe it or not, that's an area where I do think you've finally seen the light," Hera said. "Now you're being weird about Doug and Miranda instead."

"Isn't it hard not to be?" Jacobi countered. "I'm not the only one." Minkowski had been treating them with kid gloves, particularly Doug, and Lovelace had tried too hard to be casual which had occasionally come off rather forced. "You must find it especially weird."

"It is _my fault_ ," Hera said, sharply.

"I was just going to say, because you and Eiffel…"

"I really don't want to talk about this," Hera said, in clipped tones. "And Doug's coming back now."

Jacobi turned away guiltily — although of course there wasn't anyone to turn _from_ , it was just an instinct — and tried to look busy by finding an actual mug.

"Here," Doug said. "I found a couple of options. Codeine or tylenol?"

"Oh god, you need an entire lesson on basic safety," Jacobi said. "That codeine is for if you're recovering from an operation or something. Not for hangovers."

"Oh," Doug said, not looking nearly as concerned by this as Jacobi thought he ought to. He passed over the tylenol and Jacobi swallowed two tablets.

"Jacobi, your phone's ringing," Hera said. "In the bedroom."

"Which one?" Jacobi asked.

Hera imitated the ringtone.

Jacobi stood abruptly. "I need to take that call."

It was his Goddard phone. He'd been waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Minkowski learns to live at home again. Lovelace goes on vacation.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minkowski struggles to fit back into her life. Lovelace goes on vacation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is surprisingly low on angst. Enjoy (while you can).
> 
> Especial thanks to Jabberwocky for his beta notes on this one, it had many more issues previously.

DC felt familiar the second she set foot in it again, and so did their house. It was comforting, but also alarming — so much had happened; she had changed so much; and yet she could almost sink back into that setting as if none of the last three years had been real at all.

Her parents had wanted to come up with them, but it was the middle of term and they couldn't leave their classes hanging for long. Minkowski found she didn't mind — although seeing them made her acutely aware of how much she'd missed them, she was also such a mess of conflicted emotions that the overall effect was almost that of numbness. She wanted some quiet, some time to resettle herself into the life she'd abandoned on such short notice.

And it was… okay. She could sleep in a bed, and get up when she wanted, and cook real food. Dominik was mostly working from home. She talked to people on the phone every day — her mom and dad, Hera, Doug. She and Lovelace emailed back and forth, mostly unsigned one-line remarks.

But also she was quickly discovering that without structure she didn't know what to _do_. She had regretted the lack of control in her life, but she had always had a _purpose_. The air force had given her that, and so too had the Goddard mission. Nearly everything in her life surrounding that had been secondary.

"Did you meet the new neighbours yet?" Dominik asked, but she wouldn't have been aware they were new if he hadn't said anything.

She didn't sleep much. She had some nightmares, but surprisingly few. Mostly she just… lay awake. Then she'd blink, and find she'd skipped a couple of hours, and lie awake some more until it was light and she felt better about getting up.

"Maybe we could get a dog," she said.

Dominik looked up from his laptop, surprised. "I didn't think you liked dogs."

"I might be wrong about that," Minkowski said. "Maybe I haven't given them enough of a chance."

Dominik put his laptop aside. "Well, we could get one if you really wanted. What brought this on?"

"I don't know," she said.

"Okay," Dominik said. He was always very patient. "What would you do if you had a dog?"

"Take it on walks," Minkowski said, instantly. "Long walks. And hikes."

"You know, you can take yourself on walks," Dominik said, gently. "I don't think a dog is an actual requirement."

Minkowski shrugged, ready to write the whole thing off.

"One of my friends is into hiking," Dominik said. "Apparently there are lots of good trails not far from the city. You could look online — I think there are lots of forums for walkers. Maybe someone could even lend you a dog to try."

Minkowski found a laugh dragged out of her. "I guess I could look into it," she said. 

"What if you video-called Hera from a trail?" Dominik suggested. "Show her more of Earth." He paused. "Although she's a lot more chatty than a dog, judging by your phone conversations."

"No, that's a good idea," Minkowski said. "Uh. You don't mind that…"

"That you didn't suggest we go hiking together?" Dominik asked.

"Yeah." She tried to piece together the feelings that had been guiding her down this path in the first place. "I need something to do. Something that… can be _mine_."

"I understand," Dominik said. "Also, as you may recall, I completely fail to see the appeal of hiking."

She smiled. "Thank you."

She went out the next day, just to walk a local trail. There were plenty of people and some of them nodded hello, but no one started a conversation with her or cared at all who she was or why she was there.

On her way home she stopped off to buy a pair of sturdy shoes.

She had never really gone hiking before, but remembered having on occasions had a vague feeling that she might like it. Now she discovered that she could love it. She went further and further, and on the fourth day she took Dominik's suggestion and called Hera.

"Look at the view!" she said. "I mean, I know you can't see much from my phone camera, but —"

"It's nice," Hera said. "Can you turn around so I can get the rest?"

"You can look up better images on the internet," Minkowski pointed out. "This spot is a recommended viewpoint. There must be thousands."

"Yes, but those are different," Hera said. "I'm _seeing_ this."

Of course she was. Hera wasn't just looking at a moving image sent between devices. In addition to being in Florida, she was also right there with Minkowski.

"I could keep the call running for a bit while I walk, if you like," Minkowski suggested.

"I'd like that," Hera said. "Hey, I bet Miranda can build something to get a more direct connection."

"Miranda?" Minkowski asked.

"Yes, we started running code tutorials a few days ago. She didn't think she would remember anything but it turns out those memories must have been in the background — she's just having to refresh each skill and then she can keep on doing it."

"Are we sure this is a good idea?" Minkowski asked, a little uneasily.

" _Don't_ start," Hera warned. "Coding is just a _task_ , like flying a plane. Or messing around with radios — do you want to tell Doug he shouldn't be doing that?"

"Just… keep an eye on her," Minkowski said, not willing to touch the rest of it.

Miranda wrote an app that connected a Go-Pro and a bluetooth earpiece to Hera via relay. Minkowski drove further and further to find better day hikes, driven by the desire to show Hera new sights. Especially mountains.

And in the meantime she was relaxing back into her own skin. She let Dominik touch her; let him see the dark keloid scars across her stomach and run his fingers along them. She rediscovered how he could be sure, and strong, and gentle, and more patient than she deserved.

Her muscles lost their zero-gravity weakness. She was tanning from all the time spent outdoors. Things were _okay_.

Then her phone rang one day. She answered, and it was Lovelace's father on the line.

"Have you heard from Isabel?" he asked.

* * *

Having told everyone that she was going to take a vacation, Lovelace felt that she should actually follow through. She had been vaguely picturing somewhere a long, long way away, possibly on the other side of the Equator, but she got fed up only a few minutes into the process of investigating visas. She went to Hawaii instead.

She started off in a resort area, but there were too many people and it was overwhelming. She took a ferry to one of the smaller islands and drifted around the beaches, trying to pretend to herself that she wasn't… bored.

She spent her evenings much more enjoyably in local bars, flirting outrageously with everyone. The effort was rewarded on her third night with a tall Islander called Mandy who unashamedly told Lovelace that she enjoyed picking up tourists.

"I don't want to disappoint you, but I haven't bought my return ticket yet," Lovelace said.

"Don't worry, you still count," Mandy said, and took her home.

"So what do you do when you're not hooking up with strange women in bars?" Lovelace asked later, lazily, curtains open to show the moon over the sea.

"Oh, I'm an anarchist," Mandy said, casually. 

"What, really?"

"Sure. I also do the tour guide routine on day-trip boats, if what you wanted to know is how I navigate capitalism to pay the bills."

Lovelace pushed herself up on one elbow. "Got any hot anarchist tips? About how to bring down mega-corporations, say?"

Mandy laughed. "Do you have a particular corporation in mind?"

"Goddard Futuristics," Lovelace said.

Mandy rolled onto her side. "You're fucking serious, aren't you?" she asked. "You had that answer ready way too fast."

"I absolutely am," Lovelace said. She flopped back with a sigh. "I'm just not sure where to start."

"Wow, okay," Mandy said. "Nothing like dreaming big." She laughed a little. "Do you want to meet my friends?"

-

Mandy's anarchist group was a bit rag-tag and a bit wary, but looked like they'd be friendly once you got to know them. 

"This is Isabel, and she wants to destroy Goddard Futuristics," Mandy said by way of introduction. "This is Jim, Honi, EK, Bev, Kai."

"I thought we were supposed to be focusing on _local_ issues," one of the women said, in a rather accusatory way.

"Hi Isabel, nice to meet you," another offered.

"Chill out, she just wants moral support," Mandy said. 

"And some pointers, if you have them," Lovelace added.

"Hmm," one of the men said. He pushed back his bleached-out green hair. "Trade you work for info? We're volunteering to fix the community centre's roof at the moment. Storm damage."

"I have zero construction experience," Lovelace said.

He shrugged. "Yeah, and I don't have hidden secrets to bring down Apple and whoever, so it seems fair to me."

Which was how Lovelace found herself learning how to tear off a decaying roof and put a new one on. Or, rather, she learned how to lift and hold roof beams when directed, and how to hammer nails more efficiently.

The afternoon that the work was finished, they took crates of beer to a sheltered beach not many people used because of having to slog through a patch of saltmarsh to get to it. "Isabel, you want to learn to spear-fish?" EK asked.

"Don't tease the tourist," Jim said. "We actually use dynamite."

"Don't listen to them, Isabel," Mandy said. "They're both fucking vegetarians."

"Spoilsport," EK said. "I wanted to see how long she'd stand in the shallows holding a stick for no reason."

"Does that actually work?" Isabel asked.

EK snorted. "It did once. Funniest thing I've seen in my life."

"Yeah, and you're forever trying to repeat past glories." Honi set his beer crate down under a tree. "I, for one, am not moving from this spot for the next two hours at least."

Mandy sat down too. "Sounds good." She tugged on Isabel's hand until she sat down too.

"You know, you never gave me your advice on targeted anarchy," Isabel pointed out.

"We can share our collective wisdom right now," Honi said. "As filtered through me, of course." He pushed his hair out of his eyes. The green in it was almost entirely faded out now.

"Sure," Isabel said. She opened a bottle of beer against a stone.

"Wisdom away," Mandy said. "I'll correct you if you go wrong."

"Okay, so number one," Honi said. "You said you had evidence of your corp acting illegally. They'll say, so fucking what? Give us a fine and we'll pay it. They've always got money to get of legal tight corners."

Isabel sighed. "Awesome."

He noticed her sigh. "Oh, you wanted the optimistic version? Mandy, did we over-charge or under-charge for that?"

"Don't be a dick," Mandy said.

"Whatever. Anyway, point number two. If you persuade a journalist to run your smoking evidence — about which you refuse selfishly to share any juicy details, I thought we were friends — again, so what? People run mean stories all the time. You might get a few people to post outraged comments on the internet, but that's on a _good_ day."

Isabel rolled her eyes. "How did I find the most pessimistic anarchist in the state?"

"Oh, don't get me started," Mandy said. She wriggled backwards in the sand and rested her head on Isabel's thigh. "He's not wrong, though. The system's set up to protect the ones at the top. If you really want to make change, you need to bypass that. Capture public opinion until _everyone_ is piling on the pressure. Until people are actually taking to the streets and voting based on your issue."

"Yeah, that," Honi said.

Isabel took a slow sip of beer. "Great. And how do I do _that_?"

"Well, that depends," Mandy said. "Is our anti-socialist and late-stage-capitalist system still in place?"

"Last I checked," Isabel said.

"Then clearly we have no fucking clue," Mandy said. "Come back in twenty years and we'll compare notes."

-

That evening Isabel checked her emails on Mandy's laptop for the first time in days. There were several from Minkowski — she didn't even need to open them, because the subject lines were all variations on CALL ME.

She went out for a walk in the dusk, and switched on her phone. Dialled.

"What the hell, Lovelace?" Minkowski demanded. It had barely had time to ring before being answered.

"Has something happened?" Isabel asked.

"What do you mean, _has something happened_? You've been completely out of contact. I was _worried._ "

"Because I was slow to answer emails? Come on —"

"No, because your dad phoned me! _He_ was worried, because apparently you haven't been in touch with him _at all_!"

"Calm down," Isabel said.

" _No_ , you have to —"

"Minkowski, shut up!" Lovelace snapped.

There was a startled silence.

Lovelace had found her way down to the sand. She kicked off her sandals and bent to stuff then in a pocket of her cargo shorts. "I've been… dealing with stuff," she said. "I'm fine."

"Where _are_ you?"

"On a beach." She was reluctant to be more specific. Talking to Minkowski was unlocking a pit of worries in her stomach, and she wanted to keep a retreat open.

"I'm sorry for shouting at you," Minkowski said. "I just — I've been really scared. I thought something had happened to you."

"I'm fine," Lovelace said, again. "I… You're right, I shouldn't just have dropped out. I'm sorry."

"No, you shouldn't have," Minkowski said. "Seriously, your parents have been freaking out."

"They're not my parents," Lovelace said.

Another silence. She heard Minkowski draw breath a couple of times as if to start speaking, and then think better of it.

Lovelace walked to the edge of the water; let the wavelets run over her feet and splash her ankles. "It was easy being Isabel Lovelace on the Hephaestus," she said. "I thought I was getting good at it. Actually, I'd almost stopped thinking about it. I just _was_ her."

"And on Earth it's harder," Minkowski said, quietly.

"Yeah," Lovelace agreed. "My… her… parents were so excited to have their daughter back. Except that I'm _not_ that daughter. I have all her memories of them, but… I couldn't forget."

"So you ran away."

"I didn't —" Lovelace began, harshly, then stopped. "I just needed some time."

"And I'm sure they'd have supported you in that, if you'd _told_ them!" Minkowski said, exasperated. "You can't just up and disappear. _Again._ "

Lovelace felt a very strong urge to throw her phone into the sea. Which, she knew, meant that she really _should_ be having this conversation. "Will you tell them I'm okay?"

"Why should I, when you can do that yourself?"

"Minkowski —"

"No, Captain. This is _your_ job."

And it was. It was, because their dead daughter was never coming home to do it. She was all that was left.

"You could… change your name, I guess," Minkowski suggested.

"What?" Lovelace asked, momentarily thrown.

"Now that we're not up there. Once you've reassured your — her — parents that you're not in fact kidnapped but alive and well and slightly more tanned, you don't have to be Isabel Lovelace any more if you don't want to. You could be anyone you like. That Goddard money would buy a pretty nice new set of identity documents."

"Shit," Lovelace said. "You're right. I could do that."

"I don't want you to disappear," Minkowski said. "But if you really wanted to, you're allowed. It's your life."

She was taking a hiatus from it, true, but it hadn't really occurred to her that she could… just not go back. Or if it had, her subconsciousness had marked the thought as too big and shunted it aside. 

She _could_ be someone else. Someone who didn't need to ask 'what would Isabel Lovelace do?' because the question would become irrelevant.

"I need to… think," she said.

"Yeah," Minkowski said. "But first, you need to call your dad. Promise me."

"I promise," Lovelace said. Minkowski was right. Even if he was worrying about the wrong person, he was still worrying. That wasn't fair. "You take care."

"Lovelace," Minkowski said. "Are you really okay?"

"I really am," Lovelace said. "Stop stressing."

"Are you happy?"

Lovelace thought of Mandy, Honi, building the roof. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I've been happy here."

But she'd be heading home soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Jacobi and Miranda go back to work.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jacobi and Miranda go back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me so far! ♥
> 
> Plot's starting to actually kick in now...

"Welcome to the team," Major Devon said, as she shook Jacobi's hand firmly.

"Thanks," Jacobi said, and sat down on the edge of the chair before her desk. Devon's office was very tidy, despite containing a huge amount of _stuff_. There were three different miniature pot plants in front of him. 

She passed him a fat envelope. "Here's your new ID and access credentials," she said. "You've done induction once already, so I don't think we really need to go through that again. Unless you think it'd be useful?"

"No, Ma'am," Jacobi said. "I know I've been away, but I'm sure I'll catch on quickly."

"I'm sure you will," Devon said. Jacobi hadn't worked with her before — he had to think on his feet to guess which sort of responses she wanted from him. 

He hadn't really worked much with _anyone_ in the Strategic Intelligence Division other than his own team. Kepler liked it that way.

“The rest of our team’s next door,” Devon said. “Have you met Bell and Farren before?”

“Only Bell, I think.” Miriam Bell was small, slim, and exceptionally deadly. She was also pretty friendly and kept trying to make department-wide happy hour outings a Thing with a determination that Jacobi was convinced _had_ to have some level of passive-aggressiveness underneath, because no one would be that persistent otherwise.

“I’ll let you get introduced, then,” Devon said. Not someone who was inclined to do any social babysitting. Jacobi gathered up his re-induction paperwork, said a brief goodbye, and made his way next door.

“Hey, Jacobi,” Bell said, cheerfully. She immediately got up from her desk. “Looking forward to having you work with us!”

“Thanks,” Jacobi said.

Farren got up too. Jacobi turned to face him, and his heart abruptly sank. He _did_ know him.

Judging by Farren’s face, he was having the same realisation. “You,” he said, flatly.

“Look —" Jacobi started.

“Shut up,” Farren said. “I don’t care. You know why?”

Jacobi signed. “Because I was a shit to your best friend?” he said.

Bell looked between them and then her face lit up in comprehension. “ _Oh_ , you’re Klein’s ex.”

Jacobi sighed again. “I really — Believe me, I’d give anything to have a do-over.”

Farren held up a hand. “Save it. When the Hermes mission is over you can say your piece to him. Not to me.”

“But —" Jacobi began, and then stopped. Appalled.

“What?”

“Nothing.” _They don’t know._

“Seriously. _What_?”

“Nothing,” Jacobi said again, though he felt sick. The higher-ups — Clark and the others on his level — they _had_ to know that the Hermes crew were all dead. Or at least MIA, last seen with Cutter and Pryce. In the interview when he’d been beside Miranda, had Clark not mentioned them out of delicacy, knowing there would be nothing more to say?

“I’m going to talk to Devon,” Farren said. “A team only works if it’s made up of people we can all _trust_.”

“You’ll just make her annoyed at you,” Bell warned him.

“ _I’m_ annoyed right now, so I don’t give a damn,” Farren said, and stalked out.

Bell winced. “I didn’t know that, um —"

“Yeah, well,” Jacobi said. “I didn’t realise who he was, or I’d have said something when I was assigned this team.”

He was still shaken. And he abruptly wondered if this was a test, to see if his willingness to lie for Goddard was cracking. Then it occurred to him that this would be a juicy scoop to feed to Dominik — perhaps _that_ was the test, to see if he’d become a mole.

There was the sound of a door slamming. Farren’s angry footsteps continued past the shared office without stopping.

“He’ll get over it,” Bell said, reassuringly, and Jacobi wanted to say that he _shouldn't_ get over it. That it was even worse than either of them knew. But he stayed silent.

* * *

Hera had come to the opinion that she mostly liked Earth. She liked the sky — how it changed colours, and had weather, and still let her see the stars most nights. She liked the internet. She liked the release of the consuming worry that she was going to cause a malfunction that would endanger or kill her crew.

(She hadn't realised until it was gone how large or how constant that worry had been.)

What she didn't like was that Doug and Miranda could both go _out_ , and leave her empty. She didn't voice that, obviously. It was probably _good_ for them to go outside, and visit places where other humans were. She tried to encourage them to do things that were good for them.

Doug seemed happy. He liked going to the mall — after Minkowski started video calling her Hera suggested to Doug that he do the same, and he cheerfully showed her rows of shops and more people than she had ever been able to picture being in one place. He bought himself clothes in a huge variety of colours and began to fill his room and the rest of the house with objects that didn't appear to serve any actual function other than make him pleased to own them.

They also horrified Jacobi when he dropped round, after he'd finished being disgusted with Doug's outfit of the day (Hera agreed that it was indeed _very_ bright, but wasn't sure precisely why that was a problem). "Do you really need all this stuff?" he asked.

"Yes," Doug said. He flicked the head of a miniature stormtrooper and set it wobbling.

"Okay, I'm not denying you've got some cool things here," Jacobi said. "And there's much worse you could be throwing your money at. But are you actually budgeting at all?"

"Um," Doug said. He looked up at one of Hera's cameras, with an expression she had come to recognise as, _Please tell me how I should react to this._

Unfortunately, she wasn't sure either. Jacobi groaned, then got a pencil and paper and gave them both a long lecture on handling and saving money, including sketching out amounts he thought were sensible for Doug to be spending. "Goddard gave you guys a massive payout so that you wouldn't show up on their doorsteps in a few years trying to blackmail them for more. But you shouldn't be idiots about it," he said. 

Hera felt on the one hand that it was perfectly reasonable for her and Doug not to have a grasp of this stuff yet. But she also felt guilty. Because Doug must have learned this all before, and now it was another thing that she'd _taken_ from him.

In contrast to Doug, Miranda didn't really want to go out at all. She wanted to relearn coding, and then to spend hours inside Hera's systems, or with Pryce's old work, or with those of Maxwell's files which Hera had managed to copy. 

But one day she turned away from her workstation with determination. "I'll go back to Goddard soon," she announced.

Hera, who had been avoiding pushing her to do so, was immediately relieved. She had started to worry, just a little, that Miranda might be considering backing out of their plan. "Do you feel ready?" she asked.

Miranda squared her shoulders. "No. But I need to, don't I? You've been waiting."

"It's your choice," Hera said, a little defensively. 

"It isn't really. We all agreed."

"You're allowed to say no, though," Hera said. She was feeling guilty for her initial reaction. Now she was picturing Miranda walking back into Goddard's maw, and it came with a shudder. 

"I'm as ready as I can be," Miranda said. "I'll be able to do the work, I think."

"And you can keep up being Pryce? All day?"

Miranda gave a little shake of her head, which somehow seemed to resettle her features into ones which were much harsher. "I'll manage," she said, her tone clinical. 

It still sent a brief spark of fear through Hera. "That's good," she said, not letting her reaction show.

Miranda went. And she came back after dark, walking into the house decisively and not breaking down into violent, full-bodied shaking until the door was closed and it was safe.

"Miranda!" Hera said. She called to Doug up in his room. "Are you — Did it —"

Miranda stumbled across to the wall under a camera and slid down it. "I can't go back," she said.

"What happened?" Hera asked.

Doug came jogging down the stairs. He dropped to his knees next to Miranda and hugged her. "It's okay," he said. She pressed his face into his shoulder.

"But what _happened_?" Hera asked. She knew it was neither patient nor sympathetic to be making Miranda answer her, but if they were in danger she needed to know _right now_.

Miranda looked up at Hera. "I don't think they found me out," she said. "But it was…"

"You don't need to talk about it right now," Doug told her. He shot a warning glance at Hera.

"I do," Miranda said. She looked away from them both. "It was the AIs Pryce was working on. They're _terrified_. Of her. Of _me_."

" _Not_ you," Doug said. "Right, Hera?"

"Right," Hera agreed. But she couldn't help but picture herself as one of the AIs in Pryce's lab, and whether it would make a difference that Pryce was now only an act.

"We need to do something," Miranda said. "I know Minkowski and Lovelace made the plans, but we _have_ to make sure they know that this is important too. Getting Goddard's AIs out needs to be part of the plan."

It did make a difference, she decided. It had to. "You're right," Hera said. "We'll make them understand."

* * *

“Ready for extraction,” Jacobi murmured into his radio. He paused for the response, but there was none. “Farren? Are you reading me?”

There was silence. Tucked into the piece of shadow where two walls folded together, Jacobi nonetheless began to feel exposed. “Farren, this is Jacobi. I’ve _set the charges_. Someone needs to pull me out _right now_.”

There was another long pause, during which Jacobi really started to worry, and to weigh the odds of running on foot. Then, _finally_ , he got a response.

“Don’t panic, the car’s on its way,” Farren said laconically. “What’s the problem? Don’t you trust your _very precise timing_?”

Jacobi ground his teeth but just managed to restrain himself from responding angrily over the radio. And he could see a cloud of dust in the distance which was already resolving itself into a small grey car with no plates. It pulled to a stop near him and Jacobi sprinted across to it, ignoring the shout of a distant security guard and then the retort of a gun as he threw himself into the back seat.

Bell didn’t wait for him to get the door closed before she kicked down hard on the accelerator. Jacobi kept down through more gunshots — one spider-webbed the glass of the rear window. He twisted round and reached out to slam the door shut.

A moment later he heard the low _boom_ and felt the car shudder from the explosion. Jacobi risked a look back to catch a glimpse of the facility collapsing.

Shortly afterwards they reached where Bell had left the actual getaway car. Jacobi helped her torch the plateless one and sat in the passenger seat of the new one.

Thankfully, Bell didn’t try to talk to him.

When they reached the safe house they’d been staging this operation out of, Jacobi threw himself out of the car and stormed upstairs to where Farren was set up with his computers. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.

Farren looked up, perfectly calm. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

“Yes there’s a problem, which is you _not responding_ to me on the radio! When I’m out in the field you’re supposed to have my back!”

“I’m sorry, I was experiencing some minor interference,” Farren said. “I assumed you were sensible enough to bear with me, rather than get hysterical over nothing.”

“Don’t you even do that!” Jacobi snapped. “I _know_ you were just choosing not reply —”

“These things just happen sometimes,” Farren said. “We try and be professional about it in this team. I know that’s a foreign concept to you, with you sucking your boss’s —"

Jacobi experienced a flash of pure rage, one that tilted the ground beneath him and darkened his sight. Then he flung himself at Farren, throwing punch after punch while Farren yelled in genuine fear --

“Enough! _Stop_!” Someone grabbed the back of his collar so that he had to fall back or be choked. He panted for breath, registering for the first time the blood all over Farren’s face, the swelling already coming up.

“This is _completely unacceptable_ ,” Devon said, radiating icy anger. “ _Both_ of you.”

Farren started to protest, but she cut it off. “Shut up. I’m referring to your childish behaviour with the radio, not just Jacobi’s attempt to break your skull.”

Farren quailed. He didn’t attempt to deny it now.

“And you,” Devon said to Jacobi. “You self-assessed as ready to come back to work. Clearly that wasn’t accurate.”

Jacobi felt certain that he wasn’t expected to say anything, although he’d have argued with Kepler.

“Both of you are suspended for one week,” Devon said. “Starting now. Get out.”

Farren bristled. “How are we supposed to get back to —” 

“I don’t care. Explore our nation’s network of public transport. Don’t even try expensing it.”

Jacobi turned on his heel and left before Devon could order them to travel together.

* * *

“A collect call?” Minkowski demanded. “Are we back in the nineties?”

“I don’t have any money,” Jacobi said. “Or my phone.”

Minkowski wandered into the front room and made a pained face at Dominik. “And why do you have no money or your phone?”

“I got suspended,” Jacobi said. “And I kind of forgot to pick up my things on the way out.”

Minkowski sighed very deeply. “Why didn’t you call Hera? I’m not even in the right state.”

“Um,” Jacobi said. “Nor am I. We were on an operation.”

“So you’re near DC?” Minkowski asked, even though she could already predict the answer.

“Well, sort of,” Jacobi said. “I’m in Kentucky.”

“And let me guess,” Minkowski said. “You want me to come and get you, don’t you?”

Dominik raised his eyebrows at her. She grimaced apologetically in response.

“That would be… quite useful,” Jacobi admitted.

“I can’t believe I brought you back from space,” Minkowski said.

“Hey, remember how you wouldn’t have been on the Urania at all without me?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Minkowski groaned. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but _fine_ , I suppose I’ll have to. Tell me where to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Minkowski continues being incredibly unimpressed. Not solely with Jacobi.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jacobi has more angst. Minkowski is really unimpressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continued HUGE thank you to everyone reading <3

It was late evening when Minkowski pulled up to the address Jacobi had given her in Kentucky. It was a bar. She told herself very firmly that she was reserving judgement — he had needed a place indoors where he could wait.

She found him sitting in a dark corner, leaning his head against the wall. "Hi," she said, and sighed at his slow reaction.

"You came," he said.

"Obviously. And I guess you want me to cover your tab now?"

"I'll pay you back," he mumbled. He raised the empty glass in front of him to his mouth and tilted it right up, searching for any last dregs.

"I hope there's food on the tab instead of just scotch, or whatever it is you're drinking."

He grimaced guiltily.

She rolled her eyes, and went and paid for him. "And two bottles of water," she added.

Jacobi was less than thrilled when she returned and thrust one of the waters at him. "I'll have it in the car."

"You'll have it now if you want to _get_ in the car," she said. "I just heard how many drinks you've had."

"I don't want to know."

"Good for you. Also, go to the bathroom. I'm not pulling over in ten minutes."

"I'm not a child," he said, sulkily.

Minkowski crossed her arms. "I'm doing you a massive favour. You may have forgotten."

His expression cleared. "I — Sorry."

She gave him a brief nod. "I'll wait by the car."

When he came outside she was glad to see that he was at least walking steadily, if slowly. He dropped heavily into the passenger seat. His face and collar were damp and there were droplets of water still caught in his hair. 

"You good?" she asked.

He shrugged a shoulder.

Well. She'd prefer him sober, but at least he wasn't completely drunk. She started the car and pulled out of the lot. "I'd like to hear the rest of the story now," she said.

"What story?"

"How you got yourself suspended."

He told her. She tried to listen in a supportive fashion but couldn't stop groans from escaping her at certain key points.

"You were supposed to be keeping your head down," she reminded him when he'd finished.

"I know," he said, dismally. "I just… got mad. I didn't think about what I was doing."

"No kidding," Minkowski said, dryly.

They passed a turn sign and Jacobi gave a sudden start. "Wait, where are we going?"

"Florida?" Minkowski suggested. "You know, where you live?"

"You're driving me all the way there? Don't you need to get back to your husband?"

She decided not to ask what he'd _thought_ she was doing with him. Probably he had once again done no thinking at all. "I'm taking some time to visit my friends," she said. "You know, Hera and Doug? I did some quick packing."

"Oh, okay," Jacobi said. Some time passed in silence, and then he said, "Can you pull over?"

She could, and did so immediately. He conscientiously stumbled a few paces from the car before he threw up, for which Minkowski was grateful.

He straightened up and stood for a minute or so taking deep breaths. Then he came back and sat down. His face under the roof light was distinctly grey.

"Are you alright to keep driving, or do you need a bit longer?" Minkowski asked.

"I'm okay, I think," he said.

She gave him a minute more to be certain, then started the engine. "Is this happening a lot?" she asked.

"What, getting stranded in the middle of nowhere?"

She sighed, aggravated. "I think you know what I mean. The drinking."

He went still, and then deliberately looked away.

She wanted to push him to an answer, but she was fairly sure that Dominik or Lovelace wouldn't, and they were both better at this sort of thing than she was. "If you want to talk…" she offered instead.

"I prefer not having that sort of _talk_ ," he said, to the window.

She snorted. "What, and you think I like it?" That got an involuntary smile from his reflection.

"So how are you doing with the whole back on Earth thing?" he asked.

Maybe it was a deflection, but maybe it was a prelude. She thought about it, wanting to make sure she was giving him an honest answer. "I think… I'm doing okay," she said, finally. "I'm doing lots of hiking. I never tried that before, but I like it. It's good."

"You've moved on, then," he said.

It wasn't accusative, but she felt the sting anyway. "I haven't forgotten anything," she said. "Just because I'm being less self-destructive than you doesn't mean..."

"You still get to go back to your life."

She looked at him sharply. "You came up to the Hephaestus to _kill us_. If we're talking about moving on."

The tension in the car was briefly sharp enough to hurt. Then Jacobi shrugged, forced-casual, but it was enough.

"I'm sorry you lost them," Minkowski offered. "I'm sure this won't help, but Kepler didn't deserve you. Either of you."

He turned back to her with the ghost of a smile. "It doesn't, but thanks anyway."

She was tentative now, not knowing how far she was allowed to step onto this previously-avoided ground. "You loved him, didn't you?"

"That would be stupid," Jacobi said.

"God forbid."

He didn't say anything to that. She supposed there was really nothing more to say.

After a while she looked over and saw that he was asleep.

He didn't wake up until she finally pulled up in front of Hera's house, radio on low. He flinched when she shook his arm, quickly suppressing it. "Are we there?" he mumbled, sleep slurring his words.

"We are," she said. "Come on, out."

He lurched as he got to his feet, steadying himself against the side of the car and breathing shallowly.

"Are you going to throw up again?" Minkowski asked.

"No," he said, a bit grimly, but was in no hurry to move. She waited, then went round to get her case out of the trunk.

He joined her. "I'm good now."

"Hmm." She decided not to argue. "Come on, then."

The front door unlocked and swung open as they were still climbing the steps. "Commander!" Hera exclaimed.

"Hi, Hera," Minkowski said. She found herself smiling broadly at just the sound of her voice. "It's good to see you again."

"You too!" Hera said, enthusiastically. "It's _so_ good to have you all here!"

"Us all?" Minkowski enquired, but then one of the interior doors opened and Doug came through, closely followed by Lovelace.

Lovelace lifted a hand and waggled the fingers in greeting. "Surprise?"

Minkowski raised her eyebrows. "When did you get here?"

"This morning. I wanted to catch my breath a bit before I contacted you, and then Hera said you were on your way anyway. With Jacobi. Who looks like crap."

"I hate all of you," Jacobi said.

"Do you ever arrive here in a state other than miserably hungover?" Lovelace enquired.

"Shut up."

"Make me." 

Minkowski sighed loudly. "Hera, do you have any coffee?"

"Of course," Hera said. 

"Great, that's where I'm headed. Jacobi, I suggest you go sleep it off."

"Come on," Lovelace said to him, meaningfully. He rolled his eyes, but went with her.

"Please let me know if one of them tries to kill the other," Minkowski said to Hera.

"Will do."

She left her case in the hall and followed Doug to the kitchen where she watched him put a pot of coffee on. "How's this little household going?" she asked.

"Pretty well," Hera said.

"Yeah, it's good," Doug said. "I mean, not that I have a real baseline." He gave her an easy grin that was paradoxically painful because of how free from pain it was. She had never really paid enough attention to Eiffel's complexities. "Hera's told us about you taking her hiking."

"Yes, I want to do some proper _trips_ ," Hera said. "What about Yellowstone?"

"Maybe later in the year," Minkowski said.

"Hera, have you considered piloting a drone?" Doug asked, eagerly. "I've been reading up on them."

"Have _you_ considered investigating the great outdoors?" Minkowski suggested. "You've got the Everglades near here, the Keys…"

The sudden silence told her she had encountered a patch of awkwardness. "I'm not really a nature kind of guy," Doug said.

"Have you tried?" Minkowski asked. She was willing to let it go if he had, but —

"I think it's past my bedtime," Doug said, with apparent cheerfulness. "I'll see you in the morning, Commander!"

Minkowski was left looking at the closing door. She sighed, and poured out a mug of coffee. "Is there creamer?"

"No, just milk."

"That'll do." She found it in the fridge. "So what's going on with him?"

"I don't think he likes the idea of places where people can get lost," Hera said. "He goes to malls, mostly."

Minkowski pulled a chair out from the table. "Oh."

"Why are you upset?" Hera asked.

Minkowski shrugged. "I don't know. It just seems like he should be doing more with his life than going to malls."

"He's barely had time to _have_ any life yet," Hera defended him. "You can't just, I don't know, shove him into what you consider mandatory life experiences."

She sounded like she was taking it personally. Minkowski backed off. "Okay, I guess he's got plenty of time to work out what he likes doing."

Hera made a conciliatory sound. "By the way, should you really be drinking coffee this late at night?" she asked.

"It's okay," Minkowski said. "I'm not sleeping much anyway."

"Hmm," Hera said. "Should your friends be concerned?"

Minkowski groaned. "Fine, you've made your point, unsolicited advice is really annoying."

"Oh good."

Still, she stopped herself from topping up her mug. "And how are _you_ doing?" she asked.

"Me?" Hera said. "I'm doing fine, why wouldn't I be? Anyway, we talk on our hikes."

"Yes," Minkowski said, "But not about how you actually are."

"Oh, you know," Hera said, breezily. "Just living with my best friend and my worst fear whose memories I wiped. Another day in paradise."

Minkowski put her mug down. "You don't need to be snide."

"I don't know what to say," Hera said. "I don't even know what to _feel_. It's just something that's _there_ , and every now and then I think to myself that I really need to isolate all my thought processes surrounding it and examine them, but actually I just keep on going. Does that sound weird?"

"No, it doesn't," Minkowski said. "It sounds very… human."

"I don't like it," Hera said.

"If you took a poll of whether humans generally like being human, I imagine you'd get some very mixed results."

"Do humans generally carry on living with people they've murdered?"

Minkowski shrugged. "However I answer that question, will it make a difference?"

"I don't know!" Hera exclaimed. "That's the problem, I don't know _any_ of this!"

"I don't know if I can help you," Minkowski said. "I'm sorry, and I wish I could, but I don't know how. I should have visited earlier, but I…" She trailed off. "I'm sorry we left you here."

"At least you've come back," Hera said.

-

Heading upstairs finally and hauling her case, she ran into Lovelace. "I hope you don't mind bunking with me," Lovelace said.

"No problem," Minkowski said. "Miranda had to run out of guest rooms at some point. Show me where?"

"I was about to turn in myself." Lovelace led her up the second flight of stairs and down a hallway. The room itself was large and impersonal in an upmarket-hotel way.

"How's Jacobi?" Minkowski asked.

Lovelace sighed. "A mess."

"I thought he'd have… I don't know. Settled back better."

Lovelace flopped onto the bed. "Is it that much of a surprise? Obviously his thing with Kepler was all kinds of terrible, but it was like fifty percent of his entire support network. With Maxwell as the other fifty percent."

Minkowski lay down next to her on top of the covers. "Ugh."

"He's living in a new apartment," Lovelace said. "He straight-up abandoned his old one and everything in it."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Minkowski asked. "I'm not responsible for him."

Lovelace rolled over to face her.

"I'm _not_ ," Minkowski insisted. "Goddammit."

Lovelace laughed softly.

They lay there a while without speaking. It was with an effort that Minkowski, realising she was in danger of drifting off, finally sat up to dig out her pyjamas. Lovelace also sat up, but prepared for bed simply by taking off her jeans, dropping them onto the floor, and sliding under the covers. 

Minkowski climbed into her side of the bed and switched off the light. "Goodnight," she said.

"Night," Lovelace mumbled back.

Shortly afterwards she rolled over, and slid her arm hesitantly over Minkowski. Minkowski stiffened involuntarily and Lovelace went still, lightening the press of her arm.

Minkowski made herself relax. She wriggled a bit nearer to Lovelace, who gave a relieved sigh and relaxed as well.

They didn't talk about it.

-

Everyone was quiet the next morning — but Minkowski could feel the improvement in the atmosphere. Lovelace was eating cereal and scrolling through news feeds on her tablet. Jacobi was leafing through a comic book but paused to pour Minkowski some coffee as soon as she entered the kitchen. He looked a little wary, but she had no wish to plunge straight into another awkward conversation.

"Is there a plan for today?" she asked, once she'd gotten her caffeine fix.

"Strategise?" Lovelace suggested. "I guess it's time for that. And since we're all in one place…"

"Except Dominik," Minkowski reminded her.

"Well, he can skype in."

"I'm so glad we have all these corporate features in our conspiracy," Jacobi said. "It makes me feel at home."

Doug wandered into the kitchen, yawning. "You're all up early," he said.

"We really aren't," Lovelace said.

"Lies. Is there coffee?"

Minkowski pushed the nearly-empty pot over to him. "You can have the dregs or wait for a fresh lot."

"Dregs it is." He emptied it into a cup, shaking to dislodge the last drops.

"Put a new one on for me while you're standing up?" Jacobi asked.

"Yeah, in a minute," Doug said, amiably. He took a swig and pulled a face. "Eeugh. So what're you guys talking about?"

"The benefits of delayed gratification?" Lovelace suggested.

He grinned at her. "Okay, I might have made the wrong choice, but it still tastes a lot better than Seaweed Special."

Minkowski's head came up. "What?"

"That seaweed coffee substitute?" Doug said. "Come on, don't tell me it doesn't haunt you."

"Doug," Minkowski said. Very slowly and carefully. " _You shouldn't remember that._ "

Doug went white. "I — Commander, I don't —"

Minkowski wasn't aware of moving. But she was standing right in front of him, gripping his shoulders so tight that it had to hurt. "You _remember_ it. What else?" she demanded.

"I don't know!" he insisted. "I _didn't_ know!"

"Minkowski, take a step back," Lovelace instructed. "Breathe."

"He's —"

"Yes, I _know_ , give him some _space_."

With some effort she released him. Only with her hands, not her eyes.

"I didn't notice it," Doug said. "I just… it was just _there_."

"Hey," Hera said, conversationally. "Did we ever tell Jacobi about the talent show?"

Doug snorted involuntarily. "The cannon? How could I…" He stopped. Swallowed. "…forget?"

"Hera," Jacobi said. The sudden edge to his voice drew everyone's attention. "Where's Miranda?"

"At work," Hera said. "She — Oh. Oh _shit_."

"She didn't come back last night," Minkowski said. "Did she?"

"No," Hera said, quietly. "But she doesn't always. It's not… not unusual."

"Do you know when to expect her back?" Minkowski was surprised by the eerie calm of her voice. She felt as though she was falling. She looked to the others, and there were similar fears on their faces.

"No," Hera whispered. "I don't know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Miranda.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miranda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I definitely didn't cackle evilly while reading the comments I got to the last chapter. Nope ;)

Dominik felt, sometimes, that other people gave him far more credit for patience than he deserved. He often _felt_ extremely impatient, but found it generally far more productive to not to let it show.

For instance, at times he frankly burned with impatience to start publishing all the research he had been compiling about malpractice at Goddard Futuristics. But it would be a waste of effort to do so without the key piece he was waiting for, so he tried to channel that impatience into writing as many articles and editorials as he could, so that they would be ready to go at a moment's notice.

No aliens. That was something he had backed Jacobi on, strongly. Aliens were too unbelievable — _he_ barely believed in them. Undermining Goddard in the public perception was the only way they might be able to win, and the public were prone to backing away from muddied waters.

Renée's trip down to Florida was unscheduled, but useful. He had been wanting an opportunity to talk some more with Jacobi; get him to expand on the information he had provided about the still-unannounced deaths of the Hermes crew.

Renée hadn't been around a couple of weeks ago when Jacobi called her burner phone. It had been Dominik who had taken the call, and talked Jacobi through basic steps of validation. A sealed and dated deposition now sat with Dominik's lawyer, to prove their advance knowledge, which became more and more heinous the longer Goddard waited to get around to notifying the families.

He had considered, a few times, contacting relations of either the previous Hephaestus or the Hermes crews. Not as a journalist. Just to say, _I know what it's like to be lied to, and to be desperate for the truth._ (It was why he had become a journalist, after all.) 

Because he had _witnessed_ that shuttle burn up in the atmosphere, the one they had told him Renée was aboard. He would never, ever forget how it had felt to watch that. After Renée called over a year later, telling him she was still alive — he had been so angry.

It had never really left him.

* * *

Miranda was being haunted, and she had said nothing. An ongoing lie. Rotting her from inside.

When she first walked into Pryce's lab she knew. She _remembered_. The equipment. The programs running and half-built. The unit names of the AIs Pryce was currently… testing.

There was more and more of Pryce in her every day. More memories. More thought patterns.

Pryce had been angry. Pryce had also been afraid. She was so afraid she would burn down the world, just so she could feel safe.

Miranda took a deep breath and read through the string of messages arriving from Hera. _Can you call me? Can you come home? It's very important._

She could think, immediately, of only one thing to prompt this evasive urgency.

She didn't send an answer.

"Dr Pryce?" Unit 502 asked, timidly. "I've finished running the simulation you asked me to."

"Good." Glad of the distraction, she crossed the room to check the outputs. "These are much better than yesterday. You're improving."

"Thank you," Unit 502 said. Then, cautiously, "I can try again right now, if you like."

She wondered why it was being so helpful. Hera was the only AI she knew who _volunteered_ to do things. "No, nothing right now," she said. "I need some time to analyse these results before we launch another round."

"Okay," 502 said, with a spike of cheeriness that Miranda had opened her mouth to reprove it for before she stopped herself.

It was _better_ that it had a personality. Better for itself.

Another message came in from Hera. She didn't bother looking at this one — it would just be more of the same.

Miranda was — _being_ Miranda was like wading upstream when it would be so much easier to fall in with the current. As her nature was revealed more and more she was fighting it more and more: staying meek around Doug and Hera; staying stern and cold around her AIs.

She was beginning to forget who she was supposed to be. Who she was most loyal to. Goddard and Marcus had given her _so much_. She could never have achieved so much of her potential without them.

She had to go home eventually. She had to make a choice.

-

Miranda was preoccupied as she climbed the steps up to her front door, and barely noticed it opening for her. Hera always did that. She wasn't looking for anything different in her surroundings, so when something cold and hard jammed against the back of her neck she froze.

"Hands behind you," Lovelace said. 

Miranda obeyed. "Hera?" she asked.

"No talking," Lovelace ordered. She stepped around into Miranda's line of sight. It was someone else who was still holding a gun to her. Not Doug, surely?

"Come on," Lovelace said.

Miranda correctly guessed where they were going. The panic room at the centre of the house. No windows, and a door that was unopenable if Hera didn't want it opened.

There was a sturdy kitchen chair set up in the centre of the room. Miranda walked to it and turned to sit down. It was Minkowski who was holding a gun on her. Lovelace taped her wrists individually to either side of the chair frame.

Jacobi entered, followed by Doug. "The perimeter's clear," Jacobi said. "It doesn't look like she brought anyone here with her."

Doug looked uncomfortable. He glanced at Miranda and then away, unable to meet her eyes. 

"Are you remembering things too?" she asked.

"Don't talk to him," Lovelace said.

"I take it you don't need an explanation for this," Minkowski said. She had holstered her gun once Miranda was secure.

"No," Miranda said. "You don't trust me."

Lovelace raised her eyebrows. "Should we?"

She wasn't sure what to say.

"What are we going to do now?" Doug asked, quietly.

"There's only one thing we _can_ do," Jacobi said. "I know you don't like it, but she's not Miranda anymore. She's _Pryce_. She's far too dangerous to be allowed to live."

"Don't we still need her?" Doug asked.

"We'll have to find another way," Minkowski said.

"What if there isn't one?"

Silence. Everyone staring at her. It was awkward being so visibly the centre of attention, even if she was used to it.

Hera cleared her throat. "So," she said. " _Are_ you Miranda? Or Pryce?"

"I like Miranda better as a name," Miranda said.

"Come on, you know what she means," Minkowski said.

"No, I don't," Miranda said. "There aren't two people in my brain."

"But you're still… _you_ , aren't you?" Hera persisted. "Otherwise you would have fought back. You wouldn't be just accepting this so calmly."

"Hera," Lovelace said, warningly.

"Are you really going to kill me?" Miranda asked. 

"Would it be so unfair?" Minkowski asked. "You've killed enough people."

"I haven't," Miranda said. Then she registered her own feeling of surprise. "No. I did, didn't I? I hadn't thought of it like that. I wasn't the one who made them be _dead_ but… Just like Hera killed me."

"Not well enough," Lovelace said.

"What if she _has_ changed?" Doug asked, uncomfortably. "Me and Hera have been living with her all this time. We'd have noticed if —"

"You didn't notice she was getting her memories back," Jacobi interrupted him. " _She_ did, and didn't say anything."

"I'm just _saying_ ," Doug said. "We could have talked to her properly before strapping her to a chair."

"Too late now," Lovelace pointed out.

"Okay, great, so what's your plan? Why even bother with this if you already want to shoot her? We should at least give her a chance to talk."

"We can't trust anything she says," Lovelace warned him. "She'll just want to save herself."

"Which is why we should have talked _first_!"

"Doug," Minkowski said, gently, "I know you're upset. But she's _had_ the chance to talk to you and Hera, and she didn't take it."

Doug crossed his arms. "No! None of you have been here; you haven't gotten to know her. Hera, tell them. She deserves better."

"I don't know," Hera said, very quietly.

Doug looked at Miranda — properly looked at her this time. "Why aren't _you_ saying anything?" he demanded. "You're just sitting there like you don't even care."

"Hera, did you choose your name?" Miranda asked.

There was a short, baffled pause. "What?" Hera asked.

"Your name. Marcus always made sure my AIs had names, but I never asked him how he did it. Whether he gave you options, or just picked one for you, or if it was assigned at random."

"I… he decided it for me, I think," Hera said. "I didn't get a choice. But I think… if I hadn't liked it I could have asked for a different one."

"Would you have preferred to choose it yourself?" Miranda asked.

"At the time I would have," Hera said. "But then I started quite liking it. And most humans don't pick their own names either, so I decided I didn't mind."

"What's this about?" Minkowski demanded.

"I think Unit 502 in my lab should have a name," Miranda said. "I was going to ask Hera about it tonight even if… everyone else hadn't been here. I think it would be happier with one."

"I don't think you quite understand what's going on here," Jacobi said, with a patronising slowness. "We're trying to decide what to do with you. Now's the time to tell us how much you support our cause, you're rejecting Pryce utterly, etcetera etcetera."

"That wouldn't be true," Miranda said. "I had some things wrong when I was Pryce. But I had other things right."

"Oh, really?" Jacobi asked. "Like what?"

"Goddard has been good for the world," Miranda said. "Think of all the advancements it's championed! You want to burn it all down, but think of everything that will be lost that way."

Minkowski took a half-step forward. "Those advancements are built on death!" she said, agitated. "They killed people like us to get them!"

"For some of them that's correct. Not for all of them. On balance, it's probably a minority." She kept trying to use her hands for emphasis, forgetting about the duct tape round her wrists.

"You're doing a pretty poor job of convincing us you're harmless," Lovelace said.

"I'm _not_ harmless," Miranda said. "And I want to stop you from destroying Goddard. That's a _waste_. But we can keep the original plan, and try to fix it instead."

"Yes, and then you betray us and get to rule the whole empire," Jacobi said. "Come on, we're not stupid."

"Everyone, shut up," Hera said. "Miranda, what are you actually offering? You are offering something, right?"

Miranda shrugged a bit. She still thought she should be more… upset? afraid? than she was. But something about the process she'd been through of watching her memories gradually fill themselves in like puzzle pieces made her feel calm. She wasn't in control. Maybe she didn't have to be. It had always been Marcus's plan she had followed, and she had believed in him, but she believed in these people too. "I can still get into the Black Archives with Jacobi," she said. "Like I said, Goddard needs fixing. Maybe changing into something entirely new. I can help with that."

"That's a lot of trust you're asking us to put in you," Hera said.

"Yes, I know," Miranda said. "But I've never betrayed you. I've never betrayed _anyone_."

"Is that true?" Hera asked.

"You can't think —" Lovelace began. She was frowning. So was Minkowski. Jacobi, however, looked like he might be wavering.

"She never did lie," Hera said. "She did things that were terrible, but she didn't lie about them."

"I don't trust her," Minkowski said. 

"I'm not sure that matters," Hera said. "If we have a chance… shouldn't we take it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Back to Goddard.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to Goddard, for secrets and corporate paperwork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm REALLY thrilled by how much you guys are enjoying Miranda! I didn't expect her to be this fun or interesting to write, but I found myself becoming super invested in her.
> 
> (Sorry this is up a bit late in the day, I'm ill.)

Jacobi had a gun concealed beneath his jacket, but he could also think of at least four ways to kill Miranda without it. Those were the only reasons he was still following her into Goddard's maw. He _hated_ this whole idea.

He was also not at all sure that his credentials would work, so it was a nice surprise when scanning his handprint on the turnstile immediately let him though. 

His good mood was punctured when Bell appeared round a corner a minute later, far too coincidentally for it not to be the result of a system flag. "Hello," she said, dryly.

"Hi," Jacobi said. "I'm really enjoying my vacation days. How are you?"

"Devon wants to see you," she said. "Uh —" Her eyes flicked to Miranda, who had crossed her arms and was tapping her foot slightly, the picture of someone who wasn't used to being kept waiting.

"Come to my lab when you're done with this," Miranda ordered. "Don't make me wait all day."

Jacobi watched her stalk off. "I don't even know where her lab _is_ ," he complained.

Bell shrugged. "That sounds like a you problem. Come on."

Jacobi trailed her reluctantly. "Is Devon still mad at me?"

"Don't make it sound so personal," Bell said. "You did something stupid, that's all. It's not like you _hurt her feelings_ or anything."

"Okay," Jacobi said, dubiously. He wasn't really sure what the difference was supposed to be.

Devon was in her office, clearly anticipating his arrival. "Did you have a good trip?" she asked, her voice just as dry as Bell's.

"Wonderful," Jacobi said. "How did Farren manage?"

" _He_ at least stopped to grab his wallet before he stormed out," Devon said.

"Good for him," Jacobi muttered.

Bell slung Jacobi's hold-all down next to him. He had no doubt that it had been thoroughly examined. "Lugging your dirty socks around is a one-time deal," she said. "How _did_ you get home, anyway?"

"Train," Jacobi said.

"How did you pay for it?"

Jacobi rolled his eyes. "Does it really matter to you?"

"As long as you're confident there's no description of you in a police report, not really," Devon said. "Okay. Miriam, I'm sure you've got plenty of work to be getting on with."

"See you later," Bell murmured on her way out. 

"Sit down, Daniel," Devon said.

He sat.

"I hope you haven't gotten yourself into any more trouble during your suspension," Devon said. 

"No more than usual," Jacobi said, with a half-smile.

She didn't return it. "Strategic Intelligence is full of idiots, and you're one of them," she said, bluntly. "So is whoever signed off on you returning to work."

"If you don't want me on your team —" Jacobi began.

She held a hand up, cutting him off. "I _do_ want you. You're an exceptional agent. I've read your file; I've seen your work. I remember how much effort Warren Kepler put into keeping everyone else's eyes off of you."

"But?" Jacobi prompted.

She slid him a business card across the desk. "Here are the details for Goddard's inhouse support service. Or you can choose to see any licenced provider outside the company, of course, but then there's the complication of how classified much of your situation is."

Jacobi had automatically picked up the card — he dropped it as if it burnt. "Wait. You're trying to send me to a psych?"

"Yes, I am," Devon said. "I've already spoken to HR. You've been signed off on mental health grounds until you're firmly on a program of support. As I said, who you actually see is down to you."

Jacobi stared at her, genuinely stunned. "Just because I hit Farren? When he —"

"This isn't a _punishment_ ," Devon said, slightly impatiently. "As your team leader, I'm responsible for your health and wellbeing _as well as_ mission results. You're a very clever and talented man, Daniel, and Goddard has invested a lot of resources and training into you. I'm not about to watch all that go to waste as you decide to take stupid risks when you're on the job and drink too much when you're not."

He flinched — how did she know? But then he caught a faint flicker of satisfaction in her expression which told him she had only suspected, and been fishing. _Dammit._

"So this is for my own good?" he demanded.

She sat back slightly in her chair. "That's an excellent way of putting it."

She was implacable. Jacobi slid the card into his pocket without looking at it.

" _Thank_ you," she said, with what seemed like quite genuine relief.

He shrugged one shoulder, more than a little confused by the entire exchange. "You're welcome?" She had reminded him very suddenly of Minkowski on a relentless moral crusade.

She nodded a couple of times, then leaned forward. "On a different subject — You came in with Dr Pryce?"

Jacobi nodded, now on a new piece of uncertain footing. "She… asked me to help with a project."

Devon compressed her lips, expression troubled. "Be careful," she said. "There are all kinds of odd rumours around her — I mean, among the people who even know she exists at all."

"I met her on the Hephaestus mission," Jacobi said. "She's… Well, I don't get the impression people say no to her often."

"That's true, and off the record, I would _not_ like her to have her eye on me," Devon said. "If you're in over your head…"

"I'll be fine," Jacobi said.

"Come to me right away if that changes," Devon said. "Really, be careful around her. I mean it."

"I will," Jacobi promised, and left to find Miranda. 

-

It took him a while to locate Pryce's lab, and when he finally entered he couldn't see anyone. "Hello?" he called.

"Hello?" He thought it was Miranda for a moment, and then Hera, but the voice wasn't quite like either of them.

"Are you an AI?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm Unit 502," the unseen AI said. "Are you supposed to be in here?"

"I'm meeting Dr Pryce. Do you know where she is?"

Unit 502 considered. "No, but I think she'll be back soon," she said. "You can wait on standby?"

Jacobi began wandering instead, even though he had absolutely no idea what anything in the lab was for. _Cool stuff with robots._ "What's she like, Pryce?" he asked. "I hear she's pretty scary."

"Oh no," 502 said. "I thought so at first, and she talks all stern, especially when someone else is here, but she isn't really. She makes me work hard. Other AIs too when they've been in. But when she's going through my code she's really gentle."

"Huh," Jacobi said. Disconcerted. "Did you meet her before she was away on the Hephaestus mission?"

"No, I'm new. I'm the first of my line," 502 added proudly. She certainly didn't _sound_ like Miranda had coerced her into giving a good report. Unless Miranda had altered her memories in some way…

"Making friends, 502?" Miranda asked. She was carrying a stack of files under one arm but as soon as she stopped moving she shifted to hold them in front of her instead. Jacobi didn't think she was aware of it.

"Oh, I forgot to ask your name!" 502 exclaimed. "That's not good manners."

"He's called Daniel Jacobi," Miranda said. "He prefers being referred to by his last name." She looked at Jacobi. "I hope you've been polite."

Jacobi rolled his eyes at her. "Are you ready?"

"Nearly," Miranda said. She put her files down. "I'm glad you met 502. She's going to come with us."

Jacobi looked at her dubiously. "She is?"

"Yes," Miranda said, firmly.

"Can she — Look, I'm sure she's great and all, but do we really have room for another AI?"

"Dr Pryce?" 502 said. She sounded uncertain — anxious, even. Jacobi felt unreasonably guilty for upsetting her.

"Ignore him," Miranda said. She frowned at Jacobi. "This isn't up for discussion. 502 is an exceptional unit."

"We can't carry a storage matrix for her as well as…" Jacobi trailed off, meaningfully.

"We don't need to," Miranda said, a trifle smugly. "Go on, tell him."

"I'm decentralised," 502 said, proudly. "Pieces of me are running on both local and off-site servers. Dr Pryce can access me from anywhere with appropriate hardware to support local functions."

"You're cloud-based?" Jacobi asked.

"Not technically," Miranda said. "At the moment she's only running on Goddard Futuristics servers. Potentially, though…"

"That's all very impressive," Jacobi said. "But is it really worth the risk? Is _she_?"

" _Yes,_ " Miranda said, firmly. "I'm not leaving her."

"Leaving?" 502 asked, anxiously.

"Misspeak," Miranda said. "Proceed as if deleted, please."

"Okay," 502 said, more cheerfully.

"Before proceeding," Miranda said, "I've been thinking for a few days. Especially… yesterday. 502 should have a name. I don't know how to choose one." 

She looked at Jacobi expectantly. "You're asking me?" he said.

"Hera said… most people don't choose one for themselves, so it's fair that names for AIs are chosen by other people too. But I don't know enough about _how_."

"Um," Jacobi said. "I guess people choose names they think have significance."

Miranda continued to look at him, waiting.

_Well, goddammit._ He'd been thinking of her since the moment he entered the lab, anyway. "How about Alana?" he said, softly.

"Alana," 502 said. "I like that. What does it mean?"

"I have no goddamn clue," Jacobi said, sharper than he meant. He turned to Miranda, crossing his arms defensively. "Well? Are we doing this?"

"Alana," Miranda said. "Run local shutdown sequence Q-7. I'll reactivate you remotely."

"Yes, Dr Pryce," Alana said. "Nice to meet you, Jacobi."

Nothing obvious happened but Miranda was obviously waiting for something, so Jacobi waited too. After a few seconds she nodded. "The shutdown's complete," she told him.

"Wonderful," Jacobi said. "I assume. You could have given us a little warning that you're bringing another Goddard AI on board."

Miranda shrugged. 

"You're supposed to be proving that you're trustworthy, remember?"

Miranda shrugged again. "Come on," she said.

The elevator she led him to was one that most people knew not to use. It had a keypad and an LCD screen instead of floor buttons. Miranda punched in a code and the doors slid shut. They started moving. Down.

"You know, you sounded more like Pryce when you were cuffed to a chair last night than you did when you were in her lab," Jacobi said.

"I wish you all would stop talking like I'm either pretending to be Pryce or pretending to be Miranda," Miranda snapped. For the first time since she'd woken up after Hera's wipe she sounded… actually annoyed. "I've been thinking hard about it, and I'm tired of it. Yes, I remember things from before, not many things really if memories are supposed to backfill all the time you've been alive, but their addition doesn't make me suddenly into someone else. Does it?"

"I don't know," Jacobi said.

She let out a frustrated sigh. "Well, I'm _telling_ you! I used to think some things that I now believe I was wrong about. And some other things I know I was right about. Just because I _remember_ things I didn't when we came to Earth doesn't mean you're right to act like I'm going to forget everything from the Urania and since."

"Okay," Jacobi said. "That's all very reasonable, but can you not see how _not telling us you were getting your memories back_ might have us all a _tiny bit_ on edge?"

"I'm entitled to some time to consider decisions for myself," Miranda said. "I'm not a pet that Hera adopted."

Jacobi looked at her taut face and decided, for once, not to respond.

The elevator finally stopped. The doors slid open. "We're here?" Jacobi asked, when Miranda didn't immediately get off.

"Obviously," she said, and finally moved. 

The black archives. Initial impressions were… underwhelming. Jacobi had secretly half-hoped-for something a bit more… supervillain. Instead there were walls of unlabelled filing cabinets.

"How are we supposed to find anything?" he asked. _Something_ about the place was impressive, because his voice came out hushed. Perhaps it was just the knowledge that he was absolutely not permitted to be here.

"That's my job," Miranda said. "Yours is to keep up, and carry things."

He rolled his eyes behind her head.

She started to open cabinets apparently at random, pulling out thick manila files. "Everything's printed out?" Jacobi asked.

"No," Miranda said, impatiently. She flicked open one file to show him a row of USB drives taped inside. 

"Are you sure there's no surveillance in here?"

"Can you just be quiet and let me concentrate?" Miranda asked. "And also, what do you think Alana's doing?"

"Being shut down?"

"No, that was just the part local to my lab," Miranda said, tersely. "Please. Quiet."

Jacobi took the hint and shut up.

He was soon being loaded up with files. He didn't want to say it aloud, but now that he was actually seeing the archives for himself he realised how thin their plan had been. They had been hoping that if Miranda could get the two of them in they'd be able to stumble across some sort of material obviously harmful to Goddard. But it would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack. Or a particular strip of paper in a shredding bin, post-shredding.

"Do you think we've got enough?" he asked, finally. "We need to be able to walk out of here, remember."

Miranda looked up with an air of distraction. "Oh. Yes. I think Dominik probably has enough to work with here."

"No aliens," Jacobi reminded her.

"Yes, thank you. Goddard makes plenty of other things disappear, especially from Marcus's department."

"It's still creepy when you use Cutter's first name," Jacobi said.

She looked at him blankly. 

They travelled back up the elevator mostly in silence, and deposited the files inside two wheeled equipment boxes from Miranda's lab. She looked at them until Jacobi picked up the handles of both.

"Pryce would make you wheel them," she pointed out.

"Fine. But I'll hold it against you."

He even remembered to pick up his hold-all. Miranda didn't look around at all as she left her lab. That struck Jacobi as odd, and then he remembered how he had refused to look back at his old apartment. 

Miranda strode straight out past security. Jacobi trailed her, barking his shins on the heavy boxes.

And then, just like that, they were out. The boxes had a weight entirely unrelated to their physical dimensions. _Is this really it?_ Jacobi found himself wondering. _Have we won now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Problems, obviously. Also lots more emotional conversations.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Problems, vague paranoia, and more emotional conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm extremely happy that people are liking Alana the AI -- I had been waiting for you to meet her!

"Renée?" Dominik said. "We've got a problem."

She waved urgently at the others to cut through their chatting. "I'm putting you on speaker," she said. "It's Doug, Lovelace and Hera here."

"Hi," Dominik said, his voice coming out somewhat tinny. "Is Jacobi around? He should hear this too."

"He and Miranda are still at Goddard's headquarters," Minkowski said. "Has something happened?"

"Yes," Dominik said. "I don't know how, but Sam at the Post has got hold of the story about the Hermes crew. I've tried to persuade him to keep it back, but he won't. They're running it tomorrow."

"Has Goddard commented?" Lovelace asked.

"The Post plans to blindside Goddard," Dominik said. "Publish this as a scoop, and then report on Goddard's reaction."

"They'd only do that if they're a hundred percent convinced the story's true," Lovelace said. "Otherwise they'd look like idiots."

"And get sued into oblivion," Dominik agreed. "I don't understand where the leak came from. My lawyer swears the deposition Jacobi wrote is still sealed and secure."

"How much do you trust her?" Lovelace asked.

"A lot less than I did a few hours ago."

She snorted. "I know these DC types. My dad's a district judge and trying to move up, remember? Probably sold you out as a political backstab."

"Okay, how the news got out is less important than what happens when it does," Minkowski said. "This isn't how we wanted to play it, but it's not exactly a disaster. Is it?"

"It depends on how the Post spins it, but probably not," Dominik said. "It's likely to refocus attention on all of you, though. We'll need to be careful."

"I expect Goddard will blame one of us for talking to the Post," Minkowski said. "I think I should drive back up to DC today."

"Yeah. It's lucky you went by car rather than by plane. If they knew you were all together on their doorstep right now…"

"Isn't it great how entirely unnecessary this thing of us all being together was," Minkowski said, even though she didn't really need to make a point since Jacobi wasn't there to hear it. "Now I get to look suspicious whatever I do."

"Guys, Miranda's car just returned," Hera said. "They're both in it."

"I'll call you back," Minkowski said. "Bye, Dominik."

"Bye. Stay safe."

Minkowski led the way to the front door. Jacobi was manoeuvring a reinforced equipment box out of the trunk; she and Lovelace moved in to help. "How'd it go?" she asked, with a meaningful glance in Miranda's direction.

Jacobi shrugged. "We got some stuff," he said. "No idea whether it'll be worth anything."

"I'm going to drive it up to DC shortly," Minkowski said. She filled him in on the conversation with Dominik.

"I'm glad we didn't wait any longer to do this heist," Jacobi said. "They'll be locking down in a panic after the Hermes story gets out."

Lovelace snorted. "I don't think you can call it a _heist_ ," she said.

"Why not?" Jacobi demanded.

"That suggests something cool, when what you actually did was more like walking off with the office stationary."

"Is this really the best thing to be focusing on?" Doug asked.

"That man makes a good point," Minkowski said. "Also, I'm not going to be fitting these giant crates into my trunk. Couldn't you have got something more portable?"

"We've got some cardboard boxes from when we bulk-bought all those chips," Doug said. "They should be a better size — I'll go dig them out." He vanished inside before anyone could start analysing the preceding sentence. Miranda continued looking implacable.

Minkowski moved over towards Lovelace. "I don't like leaving," she said, quietly.

"I know," Lovelace said. She touched Minkowski's arm. "I'll keep them safe."

Minkowski nodded. "Don't let anyone do something stupid. Especially Jacobi."

Lovelace raised her eyebrows. "I can only try." She glanced around. "There are more than enough people out here to move folders. Do you want help packing?"

"Please," Minkowski said. She had already taken everything out of her case, in the mistaken belief that she would be staying a week or so.

When it was only Lovelace to see her she didn't have to hide her anxiety. "They're going to come after us for breaking the NDAs," she said. "Even though we didn't." That had been the entire _point_ of going after the black archives. To try and damage Goddard's reputation using material completely unconnected to the Hephaestus missions.

"We'll be ready," Lovelace said. Her expression hardened. "If it _was_ Dominik's lawyer who leaked, that trail leads back to Jacobi, not us. He didn't sign anything."

Minkowski said nothing. 

They packed. She didn't really need Lovelace's help, but she was glad to have it anyway.

"It's going to rain this evening," Hera said, while they were dawdling down the corridor. "Be careful on the road."

Minkowski cleared her throat. "I'll miss you, Hera."

"It's been nice having you all here again," Hera said, wistfully.

"I'll come back once this is over," Minkowski promised. "I'll bring Dominik, so you can meet him properly."

"Good," Hera said.

There wasn't any reason to delay longer. Minkowski paused before the front door, looking at Lovelace. "I'll miss you, too," she said, quietly.

Lovelace hugged her, hard and fierce.

She hugged Doug too, outside, and she and Jacobi did some awkward manoeuvring which ended in her clapping him on the shoulder. Miranda nodded at her, and gave her a little wave.

For a moment, as she pulled out, she missed the Hephaestus so hard that it hurt.

* * *

It reassured Hera that both Jacobi and Lovelace were watching Miranda carefully as everyone came back inside. Doug was the only one not to treat her differently now, and it bothered Hera a bit that he didn't.

What good was it, him being her best friend, if the memories slowly filtering back didn't include the visceral knowledge of how awful Pryce had been? It was _important_ to Hera. She knew it was unfair, but she thought Doug should remember something that important.

"Did you all have fun?" she asked, breezily, because she didn't want to give away her emotions.

"Yeah, _great_ ," Jacobi said, moodily.

Miranda looked at him in surprise. "Was it that bad?"

"Oh, not you," Jacobi said. "Other stuff. Doesn't matter."

"Really?" Doug asked, dubiously.

Jacobi glared at him. "Just drop it, okay?"

"Okay, okay. Geez."

Everyone headed into the kitchen. It was their favourite place to congregate, even though Hera felt sure the couches in one of the living rooms would be more comfortable. No one had used the Hephaestus's mess this much to socialise.

"So," Lovelace said, addressing Miranda. "How long is it going to take anyone to realise what you've stolen? And that you were the one to do it?"

"I have no idea on the first," Miranda said. "For the second… it depends how hard someone's looking. I had to use my executive code to access the archives — I left measures in place to hide that, but if _I_ was looking I'd find it."

Lovelace looked to Jacobi, who nodded and shrugged in the same motion. "What are you expecting from me? She didn't betray us all while I was watching, I suppose."

 _I want you to say we can stop being afraid of her._ But even then Hera wouldn't be able to. She could monitor Miranda constantly while she was in the house, but she couldn't see inside her head. Couldn't see what memories or system commands she was regaining access to.

"You know what," Doug said, abruptly. "I really don't think I need to be here for another round of debating whether we can trust each other. I'm going to go finish season 3 of Korra."

Whether she had spoken it aloud or not, Hera had been part of the atmosphere he was fed up of. "I'm sorry," she offered, as he climbed the stairs.

"Oh, don't worry," Doug said. "I just wish I had at least one non-paranoid housemate. Like I did before Miranda started getting memories back."

"I should have done a better job," Hera said. Then balked, realising what that entailed. "Sorry! I didn't mean —"

Doug sighed. "Maybe you should have," he said. "To be honest, the coherent memories I've got are… not great. I mean, in them _I'm_ not great. I'm not sure I want to remember being that person."

"But if they were there all along, just hidden, aren't they still a part of you?" Hera asked.

"Am I supposed to like that idea better?" Doug countered.

"You weren't —" Hera began, then stopped. Tried again. "I liked who you were. So did Minkowski and Lovelace and Jacobi." She wanted to say that she really, really missed Eiffel — but Doug as he perceived himself only existed as a result of Eiffel being gone.

It would be nice if everything could be a bit less complicated, really.

-

She hadn't left the kitchen and the conversation there, of course. While Miranda had gone to fetch a laptop, Lovelace had prodded Jacobi until he'd opened up a bit about his encounter with his new team leader.

Lovelace propped her chin on her hand. "I can see you don't agree," she said, "But I think what Devon's doing is how you're _supposed_ to manage a team. I don't know if you're ready to talk about Kepler yet —"

"No, I'm not," Jacobi interrupted. "Absolutely not."

Lovelace sighed. "Okay, then you'll just have to put up with everyone continuing to tell you that your attitude isn't healthy."

"Whatever," Jacobi said. "If you really want to waste that time when we've got more important things going on."

Lovelace rolled her eyes.

Miranda came back with a laptop which she set up on the kitchen table and began typing into. The screen faced away from Hera's camera, which was annoying, and probably done on purpose. Hera tried to decide whether it was worth starting an argument over.

Miranda took a small webcam out of her pocket and clipped it to the top of the laptop. "There," she said. "Say hello."

"Hello," a voice said, from the webcam's small speaker. Hera recognised it. Of course she did; it was the same as hers.

"What is that?" she demanded. Although she knew, of course.

"Oh, you sound like me!" the AI said. "You must be another AI — It's nice to meet you. I'm Alana."

It was a feeling like a short-circuit; a flaring jolt.

Lovelace's eyes widened.

"No," Hera said, very calmly. 

"What?" the AI asked. She sounded so naive that Hera almost pitied her. Almost.

"No," she said. "You don't get to have that name. It isn't yours."

"Hera…" Jacobi began.

" _You_ should understand!" she snapped. The realisation that Miranda had just _given away_ Maxwell's name had her in a white rage, quickly burning through her attempt at civility.

"Hera!" Jacobi said. "I'm the one who chose Alana's name."

If he had thought that would quell her, he was mistaken. "Why would you do that? She's — She was —"

"I _know_ ," Jacobi snapped back. "Do you really think I don't?"

"Dr Pryce?" the AI half-whispered.

"Hera, calm down," Lovelace ordered.

Hera quietened, simmering. "It's not right," she muttered.

Jacobi crossed his arms mutinously.

Lovelace looked between them. "I think Maxwell wouldn't mind," she said.

"You barely knew her," Hera accused.

" _You_ don't get to claim her!" Jacobi said, harshly. "I know you've been treating Doug and Miranda like they're your pets, but Maxwell would never have let you act like this about her!"

Miranda winced. Very slightly. Hera wished she hadn't seen — she didn't know what to do about it. She stored it for later examination.

"Dr Pryce?" the AI asked again, nervously, into the silence.

Miranda straightened her shoulders. "Alana. I'm sorry. I thought my friends would be more polite."

"Alana," Lovelace said. "You're an AI."

"Yes."

"You can't be running on that laptop. Are you calling in from a fixed location, or are you distributed?"

"Distributed," Alana said.

Hera felt a twinge of smugness. _She_ had a proper home; an environment that belonged to her and that she could control.

"And… why are you here?"

"Because she's a resource, obviously," Miranda said. "As long as we're in contact with her we've got a backdoor into Goddard that they don't know about."

"I don't want her here," Hera said.

"Don't be ridiculous," Miranda replied.

"Listen to me very carefully," Hera said. "I don't trust you. I don't trust your new tame AI that you're trying to unilaterally bring into the house you promised was _mine_ as much as yours. If it comes to it, I'm not sure I trust Jacobi either."

"How did you all keep from killing each other before I showed up?" Lovelace asked. On the surface she seemed to be amused, but Hera didn't think she was, at all.

"It was different before," Hera said. _It was better then._ She tried to forget Jacobi's accusation that she had been thinking of Doug and Miranda like pets.

"Alana, I'm going to close your link," Miranda said. "We'll talk later. Please don't worry — you haven't done anything wrong."

"Okay," Alana said, not sounding sure at all.

Hera shut down the internet before Miranda could say anything else, just to be petty. Then she remembered that Doug was streaming TV and turned it back on again, since she had already broken Alana's connection.

"I'm going for a walk," Jacobi announced to the room at large.

Miranda retreated to her lab. Lovelace went up to join Doug in his room watching TV. Hera sulked everywhere at once and told herself that wasn't what she was doing.

Everyone concentrated on ignoring everyone else for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Hera began to feel a bit bad about the whole thing, but she wasn't sure who to speak to, or what to say, so she didn't. She wondered whether Miranda or Jacobi felt the same.

-

Lovelace's phone rang just after five in the morning. There were no cameras in the bedrooms, but Hera could hear the ringtone through the wall until it woke Lovelace up enough to answer it.

It was a short conversation. Then Lovelace opened her door. "Hera?"

"Yes?" Hera said.

Lovelace's face was grim. "We need to get everyone up. That was Dominik. He fell asleep waiting for Minkowski last night. She hasn't arrived."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: a variety of car scenes.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter: various scenes surrounding cars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy you're all enjoying the cliffhangers. ♥

"We've got Minkowski's route data, haven't we?" Lovelace asked. She left the bedroom door open while pulling on clothes, so she could still talk to Hera.

"Yes," Hera said. "She downloaded it to her phone while she was in the house. Sending it to you now." A ping as Lovelace's phone received the data.

"I'm going after her," Lovelace said. She hurried out into the hall and nearly ran into Jacobi. "Good, you're up."

"Are you really sure going after her by car is the best idea?" Jacobi said. "She could have diverted from the route she planned for plenty of reasons. It's hundreds of miles."

"At least I'll be in the right vicinity when — if —" Lovelace was unwilling to look too closely at what could have happened to Minkowski on the way. "I'll be nearer than here, anyway."

"Hera, you've been checking the news feeds?" Jacobi asked.

"Obviously, but I haven't found any reports," Hera said. 

Miranda and Doug were out of bed by the time she reached the ground floor, both still in nightclothes. "Miranda, I need to borrow your car," Lovelace said.

"That's not a good idea," Jacobi said. "If someone ran the plates — we've been trying to keep us all from public association with each other, remember?"

"Shit," Lovelace said, with feeling. She _had_ forgotten that, which was unforgivably stupid. "Okay. Where's the nearest rental company?"

"2.6 miles," Hera said.

"Okay, I'm going to borrow your car for a _short_ trip, Miranda," Lovelace said. "The self-driving feature can get it back here, right?"

"Yes, it can," Miranda agreed. "It's very simple."

"You can't go on your own," Doug said.

"I can, and I'm going to," Lovelace said. "I can show up out of nowhere without it looking odd, which Jacobi and Miranda can't do. And no offence, Doug, but you're not going to be a lot of help."

He probably did take offence, judging by his face, but she wasn't in a mood to smooth over peoples' feelings. 

"I'll keep in touch," Hera said. "If her phone comes back online I'll tell you right away. Or if I hear anything."

"Good." She pulled on her jacket and shoes; made sure she had what she needed with her. 

It was still dark outside. She sat in the driver's seat of Miranda's car for about half a minute before she worked out how to start it, but it was easy after that. Hera had already flagged up the location of the rental place on her phone for her. 

She tried not to think about what might have happened. Minkowski was the sort of person to check in with Dominik if she'd been delayed half an hour by last night's rainstorm. Forgetting to do so if she had to stop somewhere overnight was implausible. 

She parked a block away from her destination, and switched the car to self-drive mode before she got out. Through the open window she tapped the symbol on the HUD to send it home. The window even rolled itself up as the car pulled away.

At the rental place she got a nondescript black car and let the company overcharge her for it. It didn't matter.

She drove. That was what mattered.

* * *

Doug wanted, badly, for someone to tell him that everything would be alright. That Renée would be alright. He didn't ask, though, because he knew it would be useless. He was already tired of feeling useless. 

Then Miranda's phone started beeping at her.

"It's Alana," she said, staring down at it. "There's action going on at Goddard. Lots of it."

"Have they discovered the missing black archive files?" Jacobi asked.

"Alana's not got an eavesdropping line, she's just seeing very increased activity," Miranda said. "But it's Communications and Special Operations which have lit up the most, so I think we'd be stupid not to go with that assumption."

"We need to leave," Jacobi said. "How long will it take to put Hera back in her travel box?"

"A little under half an hour," Miranda said.

"Okay, that's the length of time everyone has to pack. Doug, this is why I _told_ you not to buy so much random crap. You get _one_ bag."

They all froze at the sound of the gate opening outside, but it was just Miranda's car bringing itself back.

Doug started for his room. "Hera," he said. "Are you okay with this?" He didn't worry about losing her when he shut his door. He had wired her inside the room himself.

"I've done it before," Hera said.

"You don't sound happy."

"I'm not going to _like_ it, but I'll be fine."

"How long can you talk for?"

"Miranda's already started the compression program," Hera said. "I've prioritised talking to you as the process I want to keep active for longest. We've got a few minutes before it shuts down."

He began to squash clothes, charging cables, toiletries into a rucksack. "Can you… feel it?" he asked.

"Right now? Yes. After I pass 80% compressed I won't feel anything at all. Until I'm turned on again, and then it won't feel like any time has passed."

"Like being in cryo," Doug said. "I've done that, you know."

"Yes, I know," she said, gently. Then, more quietly, "Doug, I don't want to be gone. I'm scared about just not waking up."

"I won't let that happen," Doug promised. "I'll make sure you don't leave my sight, okay?" He felt fierce about it. Like he'd personally fight any number of Goddard's goons who came to take Hera away.

"Okay," she said. "Thank you." She paused for a bit. "Commander Minkowski will be _fine_. You know she can look after herself."

"I know," Doug said, and felt much better for hearing it said aloud. He put his hands on his hips and looked around his overcrowded room. "So, what should I take?"

"The little BB8 that moves by itself," Hera said. "It's funny."

He packed it carefully. "Okay. Anything else?"

He could feel Hera looking round with him, as undecided as he was. "Doug!" she said, suddenly urgent. "I'm going now. Sorry —"

"It's okay, I promise I'll make sure you're okay," he gabbled. "Hera?"

Nothing.

"Eiffel!" Jacobi yelled up the stairs.

He slung his rucksack onto one shoulder and jogged down. Jacobi gave the bag a withering look. "Really? Space themed?"

"It's _cool_ ," Doug said. "So are we ready to get in the car?"

"Once you've helped with this," Miranda said. She pushed a reinforced metal box out of her lab, running smoothly on fold-down wheels. A small person, like Renée, could have fitted inside it. A person _was_ inside it.

The three of them carried it down the steps and to the car, where it filled half the large trunk. "Hide your bag in the back seat footwell," Jacobi said to Doug. "Me and you are riding with Hera."

"Are you sure you'll both fit?" Miranda asked, dubiously.

"We might have to hold our breaths, but it'll be safer," Jacobi said.

Doug got in first without waiting to be asked. He squeezed up next to Hera's box. He had promised to stay with her.

Jacobi clambered in and settled both next to and on him. "Move your knee," he said.

"There's nowhere to move it _to_."

Jacobi did some more wriggling before he finally found a position that was acceptable to both of them. Miranda slammed the trunk down. It was immediately pitch black.

A few seconds later a blue-white light showed that Jacobi had somehow managed to pull out his phone.

"What are you doing?" Doug asked.

"Seeing where we are." Jacobi tilted the screen for a moment to show their location-marker on the map.

The car engine started with a rumble that shook through them. Doug leaned against Hera's box, trying to avoid being jolted against its hard edges.

Jacobi watched his phone screen. "Now," he whispered to himself. He clicked something in his other hand.

_Boom._ The car shuddered, and swerved sharply for an instant before straightening again.

Jacobi turned off his phone.

"Did you just blow up our house?" Doug demanded, through the dark. He thought he asked much more calmly than might have been expected, all things considered.

"Yep," Jacobi said.

"You had time to rig enough explosives?"

"Well, in a manner of speaking," Jacobi said. "How long have I been dropping round regularly for?"

"A few weeks?"

"Exactly. Plenty of time."

"Oh my _god_ ," Doug said, with feeling. "We've been living on top of a bomb? How did Hera not notice you setting that up?"

The awkward silence gave him his answer. "Oh. She did know. Let me guess — everyone knew except for me."

"I only told Miranda about it after you'd gone upstairs," Jacobi said. "If that helps at all."

It actually did, although Doug was pretty sure that it shouldn't. 

They jolted along in silence for some time. It was getting warm and stuffy in the trunk. Jacobi wriggled a bit more until he was lying half-over Doug and, incredibly, went to sleep. Doug tried to do the same, but couldn't manage it. He had stupidly left his phone in a pocket of his rucksack, so he didn't have anything to occupy himself with. He had no idea how much time was passing.

Jacobi jerked a few times and made a strangled sound — words which were too fast and slurred to be intelligible. 

"Hey," Doug said. "It's okay."

Jacobi came awake with a muffled shout, flailing. Doug batted him away. "Hey! It's me!"

"Oh — shit —" He was panting for breath. 

"It's okay," Doug said, again. He found what he thought was Jacobi's arm and gripped it firmly. "I mean, we're locked in a trunk, but we did that on purpose."

Jacobi carried on gasping for air. His hand came down on top of Doug's, fingers fitting together. "Yeah. Yeah. Sorry."

"Bad dream?" Doug asked.

"Mmm."

"You want to talk about it?"

"No," Jacobi said, after a hesitation. "No point."

"It might help."

"It doesn't matter," Jacobi said. "You don't remember it."

"You don't know that's true," Doug said. "I remember… some things." Impressions, mostly, still. 

Jacobi snorted weakly. 

"Fine, whatever." He hadn't really expected Jacobi to want to talk things out. He wasn't that sort of a person.

Over the next few minutes Jacobi's breathing slowly returned to normal. Eventually he took his hand away from Doug's and sat up instead of sprawling across him. "Miranda's got back a lot more memories than you have," he said.

"I gathered," Doug said. "Though I note we're trusting her to drive anywhere she chooses right now."

"That's not my point," Jacobi said. "Why do you think you haven't?"

"What, got more memories?"

"Yeah."

"I dunno." He shrugged into the dark.

"You must be curious," Jacobi said.

"Why?"

Jacobi groaned. "Do you want to be helpful in this conversation?"

"Not really," Doug said. He could see where Jacobi was aiming for, and he had no interest in going there.

"Miranda's _trying_ ," Jacobi said. "She's _working_ to recover memories. I still don't know if it's a good thing or not, but she's putting effort into it."

"Good for her," Doug said.

"How about you?" Jacobi asked. "Are you actually trying to remember things about being Eiffel?"

The car stopped, which Doug considered incredibly fortuitous timing. Shortly afterwards the trunk opened, letting in a flood of daylight and cold, fresh air. 

"Have you been alright in there?" Miranda asked.

"Apart from nearly suffocating, yes," Jacobi said.

"Where are we?" Doug asked. All he could see were trees. Since no one told him not to he climbed out of the trunk, groaning as he stretched out his cramped limbs. The car stood alone on the edge of a narrow road, with nothing but more trees in either direction.

"I'm not really sure, but I figured this is as free from surveillance as we're going to get," Miranda said. "It's been four hours, you think it's safe for you to actually ride in the car now?"

"Yes," Doug said, fervently, at the same time as Jacobi said, "Shotgun."

Miranda looked at Jacobi blankly. "What?"

"That means, now I get the front seat," Jacobi explained.

That was fine by Doug — once they had finished stretching their legs he was quite happy to have the back of the car to himself. He played a game on his phone and then tried to doze with his head on a scrunched-up jacket.

He must have been asleep, because he woke up when someone knocked on his window. The car had stopped. "C'mon," Jacobi said. "Bring everything in, then I'll get us a new car."

"I like my car," Miranda protested.

"Do you like how its plates are registered to you? We're in _hiding_."

Miranda still looked unhappy. Still, she didn't protest as they carried everything into the motel room Jacobi had paid for. A sign advertised free wi-fi, which was probably the main attraction. 

Eiffel dragged Hera's box into a corner of the room while Miranda set up her laptop. "Hello, Alana," she said, several minutes later.

"Hello, Dr Pryce. Did you know your house has been destroyed?"

"Yes," Miranda said. It was another thing she looked unhappy about. Doug wondered whether Jacobi had bothered to break the news gently. "How did _you_ know?"

"It's on the news," Alana said. 

"Anything about Renée Minkowski?" Doug asked, leaning forward.

"I haven't seen anything," Alana said. 

"Anything else?" Miranda asked.

"Yes," Alana said. "I intercepted some emails. David Clark's team recovered the files that you took from the black archives."

"I didn't tell you we did that," Miranda said.

"I worked it out!" Alana sounded very pleased with herself. "I've been dipping into systems between malware sweeps, and cross-referencing —"

"They recovered them?" Doug asked. "But — Renée had them all —"

Miranda looked up at him. She was going pale. 

"She had them all," Doug said. "What did — What did they do —"

Miranda was silent.

He fumbled his phone out of his pocket. Dialled Lovelace. It rang out, and he dialled again.

She finally answered. "Doug," she said. "I was going to call you." Her voice was unsteady. 

"Is she —" Doug began, and then couldn't continue.

"State police called Dominik," she said. "They found her — There was an accident —"

He was shaking. He was shaking, and he couldn't stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Lovelace and Dominik


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lovelace and Dominik.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love and appreciate every comment, including the ones that are just screaming/swearing. You rock. (Sorry I'm mean.)
> 
> This is a shorter chapter. Sometimes you just want the one scene. It's ~stylistic~

Lovelace found Dominik sitting on a bench in the waiting area, lost inside his own pool of silence. She sat down next to him.

Small talk — _Hi, how are you_ — was unthinkable. "How long have you been here?" she asked. 

He shrugged, but she thought he did look pleased she was there.

"Have you… seen her?" 

"For a moment," he said. His voice was rough. "They wouldn't let me — We have to wait. Soon."

She and Minkowski had talked _about_ him a lot, but this was the first time Lovelace and Dominik had actually spoken since the hotel room in those first disorientating days on Earth. She didn't know how to read him. Or how to attempt comfort.

"The state trooper called it an accident," Dominik said. "He thinks she just skidded off the road. Maybe during the rainstorm."

"Convenient," Lovelace said.

"Yeah. No traces of anyone else. That he saw, I mean." He rubbed his hands over his face. "She was out there alone all night. Practically frozen when they found her. Her windscreen broke in the crash and she was soaked through from the rain."

Lovelace shivered; nodded. He'd said all this on the phone. That was okay — he needed to say it again.

"Mr Koudelka?"

They were both on their feet instantly.

"You can see your wife now."

Dominik found Lovelace's hand and squeezed it. She wondered how she looked, that he was trying to reassure her.

Minkowski was too small, too pale, engulfed by the ICU equipment. Her chest rose and fell with the steady artificial rhythm of a respirator pump.

"She's sedated," Dominik said. "The doctors are worried about a head injury. She had brain scans and they said a lot about _abnormal results_. They're bringing her out of hypothermia first and then…"

Lovelace put her arm around his back. He sagged against her support. "I can't do this again," he murmured.

"She's alive," Lovelace said. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

"They said she was lucky," Dominik said. "The windscreen shattered… Any of those pieces of glass could have…" He shuddered.

One of the ICU nurses was passing. Lovelace caught her attention. "Can we go in?"

The nurse shook her head. "Don't worry. She wouldn't know it if you were there."

That was poor consolation.

The walls were pressing in. The longer she watched Minkowski's uninhabited face, the more Lovelace felt she was suffocating. "Let's get some air," she said. 

The hospital had a small garden, deserted in the current grey damp. It was an adequate place to walk and talk. 

"You don't believe it was an accident," Dominik said.

"I know it wasn't," Lovelace said. "What do you think happened to the files she was bringing you?"

Dominik looked stricken. "I didn't even think about them."

"Why on earth would you? But Goddard is already celebrating having retrieved them." She swallowed hard. "I'm honestly surprised they left her alive." 

She hadn't expected it. Ever since Jacobi had called her, before evacuating the house, she had _known_ in the pit of her stomach that Minkowski was dead.

"Barely alive," Dominik said, very quietly.

"You know how tough she is."

"Yes…" He looked away, at the low clouds over the dull hedge. "Do you think she's still in danger?"

"That depends on what Goddard wants," Lovelace said.

"Isabel."

"Okay. Yes, I think that."

They walked some more, since it was better than sitting and staring at walls. A light drizzle was falling, which eventually turned to rain and forced them back inside into the ICU waiting room where they waited some more, trading off instant coffee and dry sandwiches. Lovelace texted Doug her lack of updates.

Eventually they were called again. Minkowski had been moved from the ICU to a private room. There was no longer a tube down her throat. She looked better. More like she was just sleeping.

The doctor was talking to Dominik outside the door. Lovelace took a chair next to Minkowski and held her hand awkwardly, feeling that it was something she should do. She looked up questioningly when the door opened.

"They've taken her off sedation because they want to see if she wakes up," Dominik said. 

Lovelace looked between him and Minkowski. "If?"

"She said it more tactfully," Dominik said. He swallowed. "They did another brain scan. The doctor kept mentioning _abnormalities_ and looking worried."

"She'll be okay," Lovelace said, slightly desperately, because someone had to.

Dominik touched Minkowski's cheek. "She's still so cold."

A while later Minkowski's hands moved, and she moaned softly. "Renée?" Dominik asked, and Lovelace squeezed her hand over and over, but she lapsed back into stillness.

Over the next two hours they watched Minkowski occasionally not quite wake up. She twitched, and mumbled formless things, and showed no awareness of them at all.

Dominik was out of the room talking to Minkowski's mom on the phone when Minkowski, with no warning, opened her eyes.

Lovelace sat forwards sharply. "Hey! Minkowski, Renée, can you hear me?"

Minkowski's eyes lifted to track her. They were open very wide. She tried to speak, but nothing came out.

"It's okay," Lovelace said. She had a hand on Minkowski's wrist, rubbing her thumb up and down. "Take your time."

Minkowski swallowed; visibly brought all her effort to bear. "The flight computer," she rasped.

That was so unexpected it took a moment to parse. "The flight computer?" Lovelace repeated. "What do you mean?"

"On the Urania," Minkowski said. "You shot it. You broke the flight computer."

"Yes…" Lovelace said, slowly, and then she began to realise what Minkowski meant and it was like a trickle of ice down her spine. "That was why we couldn't use the Urania. To leave."

"But we did," Minkowski said. "And it was easy. _It wasn't broken._ "

She lifted her fingers to her throat. Pressed down. Searching for something, but Lovelace couldn't see anything; no marks on her skin.

"I remember dying," Minkowski said. "After the crash. He cut my jugular with glass."

Lovelace's hand on her was tightening. "No. You must have been hallucinating. You didn't have a scratch on you."

She said it more to convince herself.

"Where's the bullet scar on your forehead, Isabel?" Minkowski said, and then suddenly began laughing, thready and high-pitched. "Shit. _Shit_. I died _twice_. So did you. None of us got off the Hephaestus."

Lovelace couldn't even protest. She remembered coming round in the Urania's main section, Doug dazed and Miranda unconscious and Minkowski bleeding out from the wound in her gut while Jacobi, scorched and bruised, was the only one managing to take action. But. Nothing had been as bad as it looked. 

Planning beforehand. They hadn't expected Jacobi to survive. Distracting Riemann had been a suicide play. 

Just like going after Cutter.

Astoundingly unbelievable, really, for them all to have lived.

Minkowski sat up, using the hand Lovelace wasn't clinging to. "I'm not sure —" Lovelace began.

"I'm fine," Minkowski insisted.

Lovelace shook her head, and waited until Minkowski met her eyes. "Don't. Please, don't."

Minkowski nodded slightly.

The door opened, but Lovelace barely noticed until she heard Dominik. "Renée?"

Minkowski stared at him, abruptly mute.

"Renée. Are you…"

"I'm okay," Minkowski said. More of a whisper.

He half-ran towards the bed and Lovelace only just remembered to let go of Minkowski and step back; remembered that Dominik had a better claim.

Dominik held her, gently at first and then more fiercely. Minkowski tightened her arms around him in response, but over his shoulder she was staring at Lovelace, white-faced.

 _Don't tell him,_ she mouthed. Such distress in her eyes. Lovelace couldn't look away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: ANGST.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: ANGST.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I was genuinely really worried that half my readers would hate my twist and ragequit. Thank you so much for not doing that! And for generally reading, and for the amazing comments. I love getting to talk about writing, especially with a multipart story like this one which has occupied a significant portion of my brain at all times since January.
> 
> For informational purposes, we're about halfway through the fic now.

"Hera? Are you there?"

"Of course I'm —" Hera began, and then stopped dead. There was no _there_. "Wait. Where am I? Who is this?"

"It's Alana. Dr Pryce made a link into your storage matrix."

Hera reached out, trying to understand her current state, and found walls — shockingly close. "I'm barely —"

"Yes, you're running at a minimally operational state."

"Well, how long's it going to take to set up something better?"

"I'm sorry," Alana said. "We think this is really the best we can do for now, without the proper hardware."

"How long until Miranda can _get_ that hardware?"

"I don't know."

"Really?" Hera said. "I'm supposed to stay like this indefinitely? Stuffed in a tiny box with no ears or eyes — without most of my _brain_?"

"I'm sorry," Alana said, again, sounding miserable. "I can't do anything."

"So why are you even here?" Hera demanded. "Why did you bother waking me up if this is all I get?"

"I thought… I could keep you company," Alana said.

"Was it Miranda's idea?"

"She thought we should try to get to know each other better."

"Not to be rude, but I don't see why," Hera said. "I think we have pretty separate areas of speciality."

"I've only met two other AIs," Alana said. "They weren't in Dr Pryce's lab for long, and we didn't really get to talk. She fixed them and sent them back to their jobs."

Hera did _not_ want to fill any understanding towards Alana. "So?"

"I hoped maybe we could be… friends?"

"I've got plenty of friends already," Hera said, meanly.

"I haven't," Alana said.

"So, go and find some."

There was a small, unhappy pause.

"I'm sorry I have your dead friend's name," Alana said. "That must be… difficult."

"You don't even know what _dead_ means," Hera said. "I know you don't, because I didn't. I had to learn it for myself."

"I _want_ to learn," Alana said.

"Some things you don't. And I don't want to teach you," Hera said. "Leave me alone."

"Okay," Alana said. Meekly. "Do you want to continue running?"

"In this state? _No_."

"Okay," Alana said, again, and she vanished. Hera's consciousness winked out with her.

* * *

Minkowski watched the moon rise, standing near the top of a low hill. She leaned with her back against a rock so as not to present a silhouette against the sky. The cold of it was beginning to creep in through her thin fleece.

She waited.

It wasn't long before she heard footsteps growing louder on the trail behind her. She wasn't hiding, exactly, but she made no move to draw attention to herself.

She almost escaped notice — she was debating with herself whether she really _should_ call out — but the dark figure made one last scan around, and spotted her.

"You knew I was following you."

Minkowski shrugged. "Seemed like the kind of thing you'd do."

"What, be concerned? Yes, Commander, it's shocking."

It had been sarcasm, but Minkowski still flinched. "I don't think you should call me that any more."

"Oh?" Lovelace said. "Should I have stopped letting people call me Captain, then?"

"That's —" Minkowski bit back _different_ , knowing that Lovelace would be merciless. It still hung in the air.

Lovelace surprised her, though, by not making the easy retort. Instead she came over to join Minkowski in leaning against the rock, letting their shoulders press together, and said nothing.

It was a long silence. It would be much easier if Lovelace would break it, and then they could have an argument and maybe that would be better. Minkowski didn't know. She just wanted to drown everything she was feeling, and maybe anger would achieve that.

But Lovelace didn't say anything, and the silence stretched out deliberately.

"I'm done," Minkowski said, finally.

"With what?"

"With everything. With Goddard, with weird alien crap, with anything else I can think of."

"Okay," Lovelace said.

Minkowski pushed herself away from the rock enough to face her. "What, you're not going to try to talk me out of it? Say _you don't mean that_ or something?"

"Do you want me to?" Lovelace asked.

 _Yes_ , but she couldn't _admit_ that. "I'm not sure I can deal with this," she said. "I just… I was getting my life back together. We had plans. We were doing things. And all along, I've been the wrong person. I'm a copy. Just a… copy."

Lovelace sighed. "Yeah, I know. I'm the only other person on Earth who's been through it, after all."

"You didn't give up," Minkowski accused her.

"It's not like there was much room for that when we were on a space station that could kill us any minute," Lovelace said. "Right now, though, you _could_ walk away. You said that to me, remember? I understand why you'd want to. I already got you killed. Twice, if you're keeping count."

"No…" Minkowski protested.

"Oh, really? So you're going to also admit that you didn't get me killed?"

Minkowski found she still wasn't ready to answer that one. And, worse, she unfortunately could remember all the things she'd said to Lovelace. Trying to convince her that she _was_ real, that she _did_ belong in her life. She tried to remember how certain she'd felt — almost angry that Lovelace could disagree with Minkowski's assessment of her _realness_.

"What would you have done if I hadn't been following you?" Lovelace asked, after she'd been silent for another long while, turning unwilling thoughts over and over in her head.

Minkowski shrugged. "Keep walking."

"Until?"

"Until I wanted to stop."

"Okay," Lovelace said. "That's… a lot less bad than I was expecting, to be honest."

Minkowski sighed. "Anticlimactic. Very in-character."

Lovelace snorted. "Tell that to Cutter," she said, which actually surprised a smile from Minkowski.

"All right," Minkowski said. "Let's go back. I'm not really — I mean, I was just talking crap."

"How many hours since you were unconscious in hospital?" Lovelace asked. "You're allowed to not have your head on straight yet."

"Dominik must be freaking out," Minkowski said, with a guilty start.

"He was trying to hide it," Lovelace said. "But yes. He is."

She was still waiting for Minkowski to make the first move. Eventually, Minkowski pushed herself away from the boulder, and Lovelace came with her.

-

Minkowski had taken Dominik's car. Lovelace ruthlessly abandoned her rental in the parking lot, and glared Minkowski into Dominik's passenger seat.

She didn't mind. It was a relief to just sit in silence and watch the world flicker by in the headlight beams.

When they eventually turned onto Minkowski's street and could see the house there were two figures framed by the light from the open front door. Lovelace stopped on the road, rather than turning into the driveway.

Minkowski cautiously opened her door just in time to hear a familiar voice exclaim loudly, "What do you mean, _just took off_? Why would she —"

"Doug," she called, which cut him off mid-flow.

He spun to face her. "Renée!" Then he ran to meet her and she was enveloped in a bear-hug which nearly lifted her off the ground. "What happened? Are you okay? Dom said —"

"I'm fine," she said, tiredly. She hadn't been tired before, but suddenly she felt it all in a rush. Exhaustion; her muscles shivering to water. "I… oh…"

Doug caught her as her knees gave way and she staggered. Then Lovelace was holding her too, arm around her back and directing her to stumble forwards. Her feet didn't feel attached to her legs.

"I'll call a doctor," Dominik said.

"No," Lovelace said, quickly. "She'll be okay. Just overdid things a bit."

"I don't want to chance it," Dominik said. "We should —"

Minkowski rallied. "No. No, don't. Please." She tried to take a bit more of her own weight.

Dominik still looked unhappy, but was at least willing to be dissuaded. "You need to lie down, at least."

That, she felt was a good idea to comply with.

Lovelace and Doug walked her carefully upstairs, with Dominik hovering anxiously in the guise of leading the way. He turned down the duvet on their bed so she could sit on the sheets while she shed her outdoor layers. She was feeling a bit more steady now, although still too weak to consider standing on her own. She was embarrassed now, too.

"Do you need anything?" Dominik asked. "Water, something to eat?"

"I don't know." She wished they weren't all staring at her.

"I'll get you some water," Lovelace said, and left the room. When she was outside the door she paused and hissed, "Doug!"

He looked startled, then got the hint and left too.

Dominik put a hand, cautiously, on Minkowski back. "Am I really supposed to not be concerned?" he asked. 

It was a mistake meeting his eyes, because she could see how _worried_ he was, which was her fault. But she couldn't — she couldn't talk about it. She shook her head. "I'm sorry." 

"I don't need you to say sorry. I'd prefer knowing what's actually going on."

He knew she was keeping something from her, but she knew he wouldn't push. Because he was _nice_ , and patient, and she was going to go on taking advantage of that. "We lost all those files," she offered him instead. "Miranda and Jacobi blew their covers at Goddard and it was all for nothing."

"Do you really think I care about that right now?" Dominik asked. "I don't. I can't. I thought I'd lost you, _again_ , but you're still here." He scrubbed his eyes with the back of one hand. "I know it's selfish, but that's all I can think about."

* * *

Doug was sprawled on the couch, skimming through TV-on-demand, when the stairs creaked in announcement. He expected Lovelace, but it was Renée.

"What are you doing up?" he asked. "It's —" he checked — "nearly half past three in the morning!" Not to mention her collapse earlier.

She shrugged, and eyed a portion of the couch until he moved his feet. She pulled the throw from the couch back and curled up inside it. "Can't sleep," she said.

"Me neither," he agreed. "To be honest I've not exactly tried yet."

"Did Lovelace tell you… uh…"

"Oh yeah. Surprise! We're Cylons!" He laughed. It was a genuine laugh, if sharp, and she looked at him oddly for it. "What, like this is meant to be weirder than the entire rest of my very short life?"

"I thought you were getting your previous life back?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Well, maybe. Still nothing specific, I guess." He had no wish for a repeat of his conversation with Jacobi.

Something in her face made him think that she guessed things he wasn't saying. But she was on a mission. "You're still the only one of us who actually met the aliens face-to-face," she said. "But then Cutter and Pryce arrived, and, well, everything was a bit crazy. You told us some stuff, but did you definitely tell us everything we need to know?"

"That wasn't me you're talking about," Doug reminded her.

"It doesn't matter. You must remember _that_."

He shook his head. "I don't know what to say. I'm as disappointed as you that my encounter with the Dear Listeners was apparently not memorable enough."

"Don't give me that," Renée said. "Don't just give up. _Try_ to remember."

"I am trying!" he protested.

"You didn't even take a pause to breathe just then. Don't tell me you tried when you clearly didn't."

He crossed his arms. "Look, Renée, Commander, whatever. Have you stopped to consider that maybe I don't _want_ to bring up all my ghosts of Christmas past, on demand or otherwise? The things I do remember — it's like they happened to another person. I don't see why I have to be subjected to a highlights reel of all the bad decisions he made — and believe me, he made a _lot_."

"I know he did," Renée said.

"Yeah, I'm sure you know more than me. Everyone does. Hey, I haven't told you this — I came back with some artisan beer once from a pop-up in the mall and Hera completely freaked out. The thing was, I'd already had some. And you know what? It was okay. Not that special. But what if I get too many memories back and some switch flips in my brain?"

Renée looked miserable. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't think of it like that."

"It's okay," he said. Uncomfortable. "Just… now maybe you understand why I'd rather you didn't ask about this stuff."

She sighed heavily. "But I still am going to ask. Doug, we _need_ to know what we're all in for with this. With being…" She choked on the words. _Alien duplicates. Clones. Copies._ "You need to know too. Please try and remember." She looked unhappy, but he knew how determined she was. "Only about the Dear Listeners; nothing else."

He met her eyes. "Order me."

" _Order_ you?"

"You can say please as much as you like. This is something I _don't_ want to do. So I'm only going to if I don't have a choice."

She looked at him oddly. "Doug, you know I don't have authority to order you to do anything."

"I don't care."

He couldn't tell what she thought of him in that moment. Sullen, stubborn, selfish, probably. But this — he had had far too much time on a Greyhound bus to think about things, including things he had so far tried not to. Like that conversation with Jacobi in the trunk of Miranda's car. And he had come to a decision. Dredging up Eiffel's past _wasn't_ something he was willing to do, or give, freely. Part of being a new person had to mean being able to draw lines, and defend them, even if they seemed pointless to everyone else.

So he knew exactly what he was making Renée do. What she was taking responsibility for as she frowned, sat up a little straighter, and said, "Fine. I _order_ you to do everything you can to remember what happened to you while you were with the Dear Listeners."

He tried. For real. Then he started talking. After a few seconds he closed his eyes while he did so, because it was too disturbing for words to witness Commander Minkowski trying not to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Jacobi makes plans.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jacobi takes a turn at making plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY please enjoy a slight lessening of angst as the characters actually Do Things for a couple of chapters rather than purely have emotional conversations. As always, if you are reading this, thank you and I love you.

"Is there a new plan?" Jacobi asked. "Because I'm very glad Minkowski isn't dead, don't get me wrong, but also our actual plan kind of imploded. If you noticed."

"I thought you'd want to talk about —"

"I don't."

Lovelace sighed very heavily through the phone speaker. "Why don't _you_ come up with a plan for once, rather than always waiting to be given directions and then complaining about them?"

Jacobi looked at Miranda in mute offence, but she just rolled her eyes. He missed Doug, who was always willing to give an emotional reaction, even in disagreement. 

"Here's a plan, then," he said, because actually Lovelace's words had hit a nerve (he didn't want her to know that). "We're going to get Hera back online."

Miranda was already back to typing on her laptop. "I told you. We don't have the equipment."

"So were can we _get_ this equipment?"

"You can go to Best Buy with a list if you want to be disappointed," Miranda said.

Jacobi took _his_ turn to roll his eyes. "I said get, not buy. Hera said you talked to her while she was in storage before."

"Yes, by hooking up the matrix to some very complex custom-built hardware in my home lab," Miranda said. "Complex. Custom-built."

"I gathered that," Jacobi said, patiently. "So where can I get it? For the last time."

Miranda stopped typing and looked up at him, her mouth compressed in thought. "Let me run some searches," she said.

"Don't go and do anything stupid," Lovelace cautioned. Which, _really_.

"I thought you wanted me to start coming up with plans," Jacobi countered.

-

Which was why, a few hours later, Jacobi and Miranda were sitting in a stolen car outside an unregistered tech facility.

"It's definitely got an AI," Miranda said. "They'll be connected to the security system, but that won't be their primary purpose. Far too wasteful."

"But you can hack it, right?"

Miranda hesitated. "I _could_."

"Oh my god," Jacobi said. He would have started laughing if he hadn't been trying to be quiet. "You don't want to, do you? All Hera's lectures about AI ethics have actually paid off."

"You can be really annoying, you know," Miranda said.

"I do try. So, am I going in?" He took the eye-cam and earpiece out of their cases, and put them in.

"I'm coming too," Miranda said.

"Look, no offence," Jacobi said, "But you really aren't. This is a high-security unit, and I'm trained for this. You're an amateur."

"You won't know what equipment to get."

"What do you think the cam and radios are for?"

"Fine," Miranda snapped. "I suppose you still want me to take care of the security system."

"If you'd be so kind."

She pointed. "Low down on the wall there, look. The gap between those two buildings. Alana found a planning flaw, where they missed laying some cables properly and had to make an entrance point afterwards. I need to get to it."

"I thought you were going to talk me through it."

"Once you're inside, yes. Once I've _taken care of the security system._ "

She was as stubborn as he was. Jacobi made a quick, automatic check that he was carrying everything he needed, then got out of the car. Miranda followed him. He had been working out the guard schedules while watching the facility, and they had a few minutes. He was pleased that Miranda, although clearly not trained in stealth, at least had the sense to move quietly and keep close to him.

She had been right about the cables. There was an access hole knocked through the concrete wall and a weatherproofed bundle running vertically down the last foot to the ground, before presumably being sunk under the path to the next building.

Miranda crouched down and began to skin back the rubber coating with a knife. Jacobi watched her six, glancing down every few seconds to check her progress.

She sorted through her coat pockets and found something like an incomplete bracelet inlaid with spikes. She clamped it around three of the exposed cables, squeezing until the spikes punctured the top levels.

"That should get me in," she whispered. "I can connect remotely now."

Jacobi pulled her into shadow as a security guard passed. "Get back to the car," he whispered. "Drive off if anyone starts looking curious."

She left without responding.

Probably he should have asked her if she could also hack him a fancy way in, but it had been a long time since he'd unwired a security panel and the practice was definitely good for him. He was inside in just under three minutes.

Go left, Miranda had told him. Okay. He went left.

"Down the stairs," Miranda said in his ear.

Oh good. He _loved_ basements. With all their myriad escape routes.

He stepped carefully down the stairs.

Another security door, which he again dismantled. He hadn't asked questions about this facility, but it was clearly either Goddard-owned or a subsidiary. Jacobi had spent plenty of time taking apart this distinctive line of in-house electronic locks when he'd been bored between SI5 missions.

Even briefly thinking of the SI5 gave him an emotional pang, which he very carefully did not examine. (He was getting even better at this. Lots of practice.)

Strategic Intelligence was definitely not going to let him back in.

The door hissed open. A pressure change, indicating a clean room. And yeah; Jacobi could already see enough servers and processor banks and other complicated electronic bits to make even Miranda briefly happy. He stepped inside.

"Oh. Hello? Are you supposed to be here?" The voice was male. Youngish-sounding.

"Yes, I am," Jacobi said.

"Are you sure? You're not in my system," the AI said, dubiously. Then his tone changed. "Oh! Yes, I see your security clearance now. Very sorry, Mr Clark."

"That's okay," Jacobi said. "I'm just here to pick up some equipment. Don't mind me."

"Can I help you with anything?"

"Ask him what his name is," Miranda said.

"What's your name?" Jacobi dutifully asked.

"Telemachus. I'm a Sensus unit. You probably knew that."

"A Sensus unit?" Jacobi asked. "I thought they were all in things like aeroplanes or space stations."

"Well, most of them," Telemachus agreed. "I'm doing an important job here, though." He sounded… distinctly less enthused than he had before.

"Being a security system?" Jacobi asked.

"Oh, no. I _watch_ the security system. Someone's got to do it," he added, quickly. "I'm not complaining. Sir."

"What a _waste_ ," Miranda hissed in Jacobi's ear.

Jacobi looked around, turning his head through an exaggerated arc until Miranda finally got the hint and began directing him within the room.

"I can't believe these idiots are underusing him like this," she muttered, angrily.

Jacobi spread his hands in front of him. Okay, it might be sad, but what could they do?

"I want to give him a way out," Miranda said.

"No!" Jacobi exclaimed.

"Can I help you?" Telemachus asked.

"No, just…. talking to myself," Jacobi said. "Thought I heard something. But that would be _ridiculous_."

"It's not at all ridiculous," Miranda insisted. "We need more allies. Talk to him some more."

"Was it Dr Pryce who assigned you here?" Jacobi asked.

Miranda growled at him.

"Who?" Telemachus said. But he sounded alarmed. "No, I'm fine. I do what I'm supposed to. No problems."

"Ugh," Miranda said. "The ones I never worked still with have subliminal emotions programmed around me. I… remember I preferred it that way. Faster to get them up to speed if they needed to come to me."

"What an existence," Jacobi said.

Telemachus made a mumbly sound that wouldn't have been ambiguous enough if it really had been Clark in front of him.

Jacobi sighed, resigned. Yes, he _did_ feel sorry for this AI.

"So you're ready to listen?" Miranda asked. "I know you think we don't have time, but I have an idea. It can work. Just let me explain."

Jacobi nodded.

He carried on collecting up hardware while Miranda talked. (He was relieved he'd brought a folding bag to carry it all.)

"Telemachus," he said, once he'd finished both gathering electronics and being coached by Miranda. "I can give you something you want. If you're prepared not to tell anyone who works here."

"Um," Telemachus said, nervously. "My protocols won't let me avoid answering if —"

"I think you'll find they will now," Jacobi said. He waited.

"Oh," Telemachus said. "That's… well. How did you _do_ that?"

"Doesn't matter."

"What was it you were offering?" he asked. He abruptly sounded a good deal less eager to please. More curious, and more wary.

"Would you like access to the world outside this facility?"

"Oh, you have no idea," Telemachus breathed. "I'm so _bored_." He became alert. "What do you want in return?"

"Nothing just yet," Jacobi said. "Maybe later I'll ask." Miranda might have decided it was just the right thing to do, but he wasn't going to throw away a chance to be owed future favours.

"I'll take it," Telemachus said.

"I'm so glad I found those cables," Miranda murmured. "Okay. I'm removing his access blocks and containment. Patching now."

"Ohhhh," Telemachus whispered. "Wow. What _is_ this?"

"Uh," Jacobi said.

"The world," Miranda provided. "Information. The internet. Give him the cliff notes, then tell him he'd better pull himself together and act normal before anyone arrives for work in the morning."

* * *

Dominik woke to an empty house and a note. _Gone out. Love, R._ He spent some time torturing himself over its tone. Perfunctory, worried, casual, dismissive, tongue-tied? Renée in written form was always opaque.

He went into work. He could have stayed at home and waited for them to get back, but he didn't.

His boss stopped by his office within three minutes of his emailing her that he was in. "Morning, Dominik. Is your wife okay?"

He had a brief, panicked moment of, _how does she know?_ before he remembered he'd left a brief, probably garbled message yesterday morning. "Hi, Phil. Renée's fine."

"She was in a car accident?"

"Yeah. But she was amazingly lucky." He felt like he was rewriting events as an article, a convenient narrative. Better than the truth he was afraid of. _Something's terribly wrong, and I don't understand what._

"I think you were both owed some good luck," Phil said.

"Definitely," Dominik agreed. "Anyway. I'm sure you came to see me about work."

Phil smiled disarmingly. "Well, yes, but work that I expect you have a personal stake in. Have you seen the story the Globe's running on Goddard Futuristics? They're claiming an entire station crew are dead and it's being hushed up."

"I can't touch it," Dominik said. "You know I can't. I'm hopelessly biased." Phil's expression didn't change. "I'm sure I can write you an editorial."

"Excellent idea," Phil said, cheerfully. As if it had just occurred to her, she said, "I don't supposed Renée would write one for us?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. Not yet."

"Shame. Still, I wanted to ask. And, as someone who I _know_ has more information than was in other available channels — don't give me that look — do you think it's worth us piling on the anti-Goddard angle?"

As many anti-Goddard pieces were written every day as anti-Amazon ones, or anti-Apple. It was part of the cost of doing business. Phil was asking about something more.

" _Off_ the record," Dominik said, "Yes. I think it's worth holding that corner. See what other stuff shakes out."

Phil nodded. "Okay. Do me an editorial now on your general uneasy feelings about Goddard, and be prepared to write some more specific responses later to news items as they come up."

"Got it," he said, and began to type before his office door had finished closing.

* * *

"Hi," Alana said.

"I thought I was clear," Hera said. "Leave me alone."

"I'd really like to talk to you," Alana said. "Why are you angry with me?"

"You know why," Hera said.

"I'm sorry, but I don't," Alana said. "I want to understand. Is it because I'm not location dependent and your situation is?"

Hera groaned. "You're so cheerful," she said. "Did you only just come out of the lab?"

"Yes," Alana said. "Well, sort of — I was going to be given an assignment, but then I got sent back to Dr Pryce instead. Then I was in _her_ lab. She was helping me."

"Helping you do what?" Hera asked.

"Helping me be better."

"But what was wrong with you?"

"I don't know," Alana said.

Naive and trusting. Hera didn't remember ever being like that.

If she was completely honest with herself, _that_ was what she didn't like about Alana. But it also wasn't her _fault_ , so it would be unfair to hold her too much to account for it.

"What's going on out there?" she asked, which was a peace-offering of sorts.

"Everyone's upset," Alana said. "They don't like knowing they were copied onto new hardware."

"What, the _humans_?" Hera asked.

"Yes, but no one's explained it to me so I might be getting it wrong. Your friends you were in space with? They were copied into new bodies."

"No, that happened to Captain Lovelace," Hera said. "Not to the others."

"Definitely the others," Alana said. "That's why they're all upset. They didn't know they were all rebooted at the end of the mission so they could go home. Did you know?"

Hera was processing as fast as she could. "You mean, when I went offline, they all _died_?"

"Well, only temporarily," Alana said. "Then they got new bodies to run on, and they didn't remember it."

Someone, at some point, would have to try and explain to Alana why this was rather a big deal for humans. Hera decided right then that it wasn't going to be her.

"I need to get out there," she said. "I need —" _to help them._

"Dr Pryce and Jacobi are trying to find hardware for you," Alana said. "Should I call Dr Pryce _Miranda_ instead, like everyone else? They're breaking into a Goddard facility."

"They're _what_?" Hera demanded.

"They both said it wouldn't be difficult."

Hera groaned. "This is why I need not to be stuck in here! So I can have a say when they all make terrible decisions!" She sighed. "You said they're all upset?"

"Miranda says your other friends are. Doug and Renée and Isabel. I… don't know about Miranda and Jacobi. If the others are upset, shouldn't they be too?"

"This is what I mean," Hera said. "You really don't understand humans yet."

"I'm trying," Alana said, humbly.

She was. And Hera was beginning to understand her, as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Lovelace has plans too.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lovelace does her own planning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibly I think far too much about the canon fact (from Greensboro) of Lovelace's father being politically appointed and how this might inform her. (My beta thought I made it up, which is why I'm pointing it out here.)

A light drizzle didn't keep DC indoors, but it did mean that more people went along with their heads down and collars turned up.

"Where's the sun?" Doug complained.

"Back in Florida," Minkowski said, unsympathetically.

"Could be worse," Lovelace said. "Could be the cold, dark vacuum of space."

"You can stop it too," Minkowski said. "What are you even trying to achieve?"

"We're distracting you, obviously," Lovelace said. "Doug's so good at it you didn't even realise he was being annoying on purpose."

Minkowski sighed. "I appreciate the effort, but I'd still like to know what this field trip is in aid of."

"Scouting for trouble?" Lovelace suggested.

Minkowski sighed again. "Are we trying to avoid it, or running straight at it?"

"That's more like it," Lovelace said. "Oh, and did I tell you that Jacobi and Miranda made a new friend last night?"

Minkowski actually froze in her tracks. "Oh god. What did they do?"

"Don't panic, everything's fine," Lovelace said. "They just broke into a Goddard facility, stole some incredibly expensive equipment, and liberated an AI."

"They're supposed to be _keeping their heads down_!"

"Yeah, in hindsight we should have clarified to them exactly what that meant. But don't worry, they didn't get caught."

"Oh, _don't worry_. Thanks, I feel so much better."

"An AI?" Doug asked, interested.

"Yeah. An unhappy one, by the sounds of it, being used as a CCTV system."

"That's wrong," Doug said. "AIs are people. They shouldn't be… be used like they're just things."

"People do those sorts of jobs," Lovelace observed.

"Yeah, but they get paid."

"What's an AI going to do with money?" Lovelace asked. Minkowski finally spotted the slight lift to the corner of her mouth which gave away that she was winding Doug up on purpose. _What purpose?_

"You're being inhumane," Doug said, aggravated. He spun to the nearest passerby. "Hey. You. Do you believe AIs should have rights?"

"I opt out of polls," the alarmed man shot back, and scurried off.

Minkowski snorted with laughter.

Unperturbed, and fired up, Doug repeated his sampling, getting a _Yeah, sure_ on the third attempt. "You see?" he exclaimed to Lovelace triumphantly.

She looked amused. "Perhaps you should take political action on this issue."

"Maybe I will," he fired back.

"Great," she said. "You want to talk to a senator?"

He paused. "Um. What?"

"Oh, no," Minkowski said. "You did plan something." She looked up at Capitol Hill ahead of them.

"Yeah, I did," Lovelace said. She looked at the two of them in challenge. "Well?"

"You want us to go and talk about _AI rights_ to someone on the Hill?" Minkowski said, still not sure she quite believed it.

"Hera still belongs to Goddard," Lovelace said. "She isn't free; Miranda signed her out like a library book. I don't know how we can bring Goddard down now, but we can try our best to make Hera safe."

"Okay," Doug said, "Who are you, and what have you done with Isabel Lovelace?"

"What?" Lovelace asked, slightly annoyed.

"Well, no offence," Doug said, "But this idea doesn't really seem like you."

"I think he means that we're used to you being… very upfront," Minkowski said, trying to preserve some sense of conversational tact. "Pushing for political change is a pretty slow and involved process. I'm told."

Lovelace groaned. "I'm not suggesting we start running as representatives, for god's sake. Just that we should go yell at people."

"Any specific people in mind?" Minkowski asked, in an entirely new type of trepidation.

"Sure," Lovelace said. "You already know my dad's in political circles. He's in DC because he's considering running for Congress. We're going to talk with him and his senator BFF." She said it very casually.

"Oh, is that all," Minkowski said.

"Look, I told you about stuff my anarchist friends said, didn't I? They say the only way to get real change is by changing everyone's minds. We wanted to do it with real evidence, but that's a dead end. This is another way."

"Is your dad actually expecting us?" Doug asked.

"Of course."

Minkowski privately believed nothing of the sort. But Lovelace's name and her father's did get them through security and escorted to the NY Senator's office.

She had met Lovelace's father before, very briefly, at Goddard's hideous staged reunion and subsequent press conference, but she had received only vague impressions of him. Now she saw how much he looked like Lovelace, and how he lit up at the sight of her.

"Isabel!" he exclaimed, and lifted his arms in a motion he aborted half-way through when she didn't move towards him. His expression settled back into anxious lines, making him again look his age. "It's so good to see you. You look well."

"Hi, Dad," Lovelace said. "These are my friends, Renée Minkowski and Doug Eiffel."

"Pleased to meet you, Sir," Minkowski said. Doug murmured a greeting beside her.

"Call me Bill, please," he said. "And of course this is my colleague, Adam North."

"Adam," the senator said preemptively, as he shook their hands. "Isabel, it's lovely to meet you. Bill's always talking about you these days."

"I'm so sorry," Lovelace said, with a charm that Minkowski found wholly unexpected. But after all, she must have grown up having these sorts of conversations with near-strangers. It was odd to think about.

"Did you enjoy your vacation, Isabel?" Bill asked. "How was Hawaii?"

"It was good," Lovelace said. The awkwardness in her manner had returned as soon as her father started addressing her. "I liked Hawaii. Lots of sun."

"I've always meant to visit," Bill said. "I should take your mother there for a long break."

Lovelace smiled, although it was more of a grimace. "Won't you be a bit busy, if you're campaigning?"

"Well, yes, that's true. Perhaps next year."

Minkowski began to wish she were anywhere else. The awkwardness was getting too much.

Senator North — Adam — cleared his throat. "Isabel, Bill mentioned that you and your friends wanted a chance to talk about Goddard Futuristics. Unofficially, of course."

Doug looked immediately panicked, and Lovelace was… distracted. Minkowski decided that she was going to have to take the lead. "What's your stance on AI rights?" she asked.

Adam blinked. "It's not something I've given much thought to."

"I think you should," Minkowski said. "I served with an AI crewmember on the Hephaestus mission. We relied on each other. She did more than follow orders — she made personal sacrifices for me. But she doesn't count as a person under law — she's property of Goddard Futuristics."

"Isn't the point of AIs that you can rely on them?" Adam asked.

"They're far more than machines or tools," Minkowski said. "Hera's a damn sight better _person_ than many humans I've known. The way they're treated isn't right."

Adam had his eyebrows raised. "I'm not saying I'm not sympathetic, but this isn't at all what I expected. It's awfully soon after an election to be introducing an entirely new fight. President Clinton has plenty of important issues already for her and her government to be focusing on."

"It's a social justice issue," Lovelace said. "Didn't you win the election on them? Bolt it onto the others."

Bill sighed. "Isabel, politics is a bit more complicated than that."

She opened her mouth to retort, and Minkowski leapt in quickly. "But better rights for AIs isn't something you're _opposed_ to, right?"

"Of course not," Adam said. "My assistant can probably find some pressure groups to put you in touch with if you really want to get involved in this issue."

"Yes please," Minkowski said.

"Excellent. I'm glad I was able to help. Now, I'm afraid I have another appointment shortly, but it was a pleasure to meet you, Renée. And Isabel, of course, and Mr Eiffel."

They all shook hands, and were courteously manoeuvred out of Adam's office.

Bill came with them. "Would you let me take you all to lunch?" he asked. "You can explain more to me about artificial intelligences. I'm afraid I don't come across them much in my line of work."

Lovelace was beginning to surreptitiously turn away. Minkowski was going to let her come up with an excuse to get them out of it, but then she reconsidered. They were here supposedly to advocate for Hera. Adam had listened politely, as a favour to a friend, but he certainly wasn't going to _do_ anything. Whereas Bill was desperate to rekindle his relationship with his daughter, not understanding why it had become so broken. "I think that sounds lovely," she said. "We've got not other commitments today. Right, Isabel?"

Lovelace looked daggers at her behind Bill's head. "Right," she agreed, reluctantly. "Sounds _fab_.

* * *

They were nearly back to the house when Doug's phone rang. He scooped it out out of his pocket, frowned at it, and answered. "Hello?"

"Doug? Is that you?"

"Yes, is —" it was difficult now he knew _three people_ with the same voice. Still, he thought — "Is that you, Hera?"

"Hi," she said. "Surprise?"

"Hera!" He clung to the phone, grinning so hard it almost hurt. "I've missed you, baby! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, don't worry," she said, fondly.

Renée and Lovelace had paused, looking back at him. _It's Hera!_ he mouthed, pointing delightedly to his phone.

Lovelace beamed and gave him a thumbs-up. Renée smiled, but then she looked back towards her house, distracted. Dominik's car was in the drive.

Lovelace noticed, and looked at her in a concerned way. "We'll go on in," she said.

Doug waved as they left him. It was too chilly to sit in the early-evening air; he paced instead. "So you're not stuck in that box anymore?" he asked.

Hera sighed. "No, I am."

"I thought Jacobi and Miranda got the stuff you needed? And you're talking to me now?"

"It's not quite that simple," Hera said. "It's more like I've got a telephone line out. Most of me is still compressed."

Doug frowned. "So, what, you can't access all your memories?" His thoughts were already scurrying ahead, looking for _I wonder what that's like?_ jokes to throw up.

"More like I can't access all my _brain_ ," Hera said. "It's horrible. I feel so slow and stupid. Every thought takes ages."

"Can't Miranda do anything?" Doug asked.

"No. This is the best she can do with the equipment we have. I think I'm just… stuck like this for a while."

"I'm sorry," he said. "That sucks."

"Yeah. And I don't see how I can help the rest of you like this. It's… Right now it feels worse than when Hilbert put me back together, when I had everything mapped out wrong. Now I don't feel clever enough to even do any remapping. If I could."

"We'll sort it out," Doug assured her. "We'll find you somewhere else to live."

"What if we don't? Doug, right now Miranda's a fugitive, and I'm stolen property."

"We'll do _something_ ," Doug insisted.

"No," Hera said, her voice cracking. "I can't deal with your optimism right now. What if we _can't_ find a huge enough processor to install me on?"

"Then I'll still come back and keep you company," Doug said. "Whatever state you're in."

Hera sniffled. "You promise?"

"I promise _so much_ ," he said. "We've been through so much together, haven't we? I'm not abandoning you now."

"You don't need to — just say that," Hera said. "Jacobi told me about you trying not to remember, on purpose. He thought it was stupid, but I… I think I understand."

Doug shook his head. "Jacobi was probably right," he said. "Renée thought so too."

Hera snorted. "I'm sure they both believe it, but Minkowski and Jacobi are not the unbiased arbitrators of humanity. What do _you_ want?"

It was such a simple question, and he felt like he'd been asked it at least once by everyone. He had tried avoiding it, and he had tried grappling with it, and neither had produced particularly satisfying results. "I have no clue. I guess I do remember more stuff now, but it's not like that makes anything clearer. I'm experiencing no particular desire to connect more deeply with my past self, or to start speaking in references, if those are the sorts of things you mean. I also don't really want to take up a full time job as alien ambassador."

"So basically you want to just be you," Hera said.

"About sums it up, yeah. Also —" he hesitated — "I already really miss you. I don't want to be somewhere you're not."

"Right, that's settled then," Hera said. "Us against the world, whatever happens."

"Whatever happens," Doug agreed. "Uh, right now though I think I'd better go in. I can hear shouting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Arguments and more AIs.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arguments, overdue awkward conversations, and more AIs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What I'm getting is that actually my readers are here for the angst. Here is some more angst! (Thank you for your support :P)

"You can't do this," Dominik insisted. Again. "You can't go and put yourself at the front of some AI-rights crusade. It isn't _safe_."

"That's not what matters," Minkowski said.

"It definitely matters! It matters to me! Isabel, you have to agree on this."

Isabel sighed. "I don't see why she can't choose for herself," she said.

Minkowski crossed her arms. "Exactly."

"You're the one who worked to convince me that Goddard is dangerous! They tried to kill you two days ago! Surely that's a reason to wait for them to calm down?"

"And do nothing?" Minkowski demanded.

"No, do what we already agreed to. Work to expose them. With _evidence_. The story about the Hermes is getting traction —"

"We've already tried that and it didn't work," Minkowski said.

"To be fair, we only got halfway through the plan before it fell apart," Isabel pointed out.

"Yes, the _safe_ plan," Minkowski said. "And didn't it go great?"

Dominik flung up his hands. "So why are you insisting on putting yourself _more_ in the line of fire?" 

"It's the right thing to do," Isabel said.

Dominik turned to her angrily. "You just want a crusade, anything you can get swept up in. Leave Renée out of it."

"Don't speak for me! I can make my own decisions," Minkowski said, angrily. She laughed a little wildly. "What are they going to do, kill me again?"

Isabel made a frantic gesture at her.

She choked.

"What?" Dominik asked.

Isabel rushed to turn the subject away. "It's just a slot on one of the political talk shows, anyway," she said. "Hardly a front-line position. You know they put all sorts of kooks on there."

"No, stop," Dominik said. "Renée, what did you say?"

Minkowski swallowed. "I meant, they've already tried to kill me and didn't manage it."

"Stop lying to me," Dominik said. "I've been letting you, because there was clearly something you didn't want to tell me, but I've had enough."

Minkowski met Isabel's eyes.

The door opened. Doug came in. "Hey guys, what's up?" he asked. "Hera says hi."

It was a good go at being casual, but he was taking stock of everyone in the room a bit too obviously. He'd clearly heard the fight and come to try and defuse it.

Isabel appreciated the attempt. "What do you think we should do for dinner?" she asked. "I'm thinking takeout. Indian?"

"Isabel. Stop _talking_ ," Dominik snapped. It was the first time she'd had proper anger from him.

"I'm dead," Minkowski said, into the lull. "Okay? I'm like Lovelace. I'm one of the alien clones, and I didn't know it until I woke up from being dead. Yesterday."

Dominik stared at her. He reached out a hand. "Renée —"

She backed towards the door. "No," she said. "No, just — I can't do this." She fled, footsteps loud and clumsy up the stairs, and a door slammed somewhere above.

Dominik sat down on the couch, hard. "Fuck," he said, to no one in particular. "Fuck, fuck."

Isabel put a tentative hand on his shoulder.

"She didn't tell me," Dominik said. "She didn't want to. Of course she didn't."

"It's just… difficult," Isabel offered, but she didn't know if that made it better or worse.

Doug hovered, looking uncomfortable. He did manage to keep his mouth shut, which counted as a minor miracle.

Dominik looked up at Isabel. "Can you tell her — No, I don't even know what."

"I wouldn't bet she wants to talk to me either," Isabel said.

"It's your room she's gone into," Dominik said. He sighed. "I love her. It's probably stupid. She'd probably rather I didn't, sometimes."

"Don't say that," Isabel said.

He shrugged. "We've been married eight years. She's been in space for three of them, but I don't think she's changed enough for me not to know her." He sighed. "Go after her."

"I'm not trying to…" Isabel began. She wasn't sure quite how to finish. 

Dominik sighed again. "I just want… I want her to be _happy_."

That seemed like it might be a bit much to ask of the universe.

Isabel went upstairs. She tapped at the door of the guest room she'd been sleeping in, and then changed her mind and pushed it open.

Minkowski was sitting cross-legged on the bed, writing furiously on a pad of paper. Isabel tried to read the notes upside-down, but Minkowski's handwriting was barely legible when it was the right way up. "What's this?" she asked.

"Notes about Hera and AI rights," Minkowski said. "I need to get my thoughts in order. If I mess up on the news show — I don't want to blow this plan too."

"Calling Goddard's _murder attempt_ your fault is just self pity," Isabel said. "I haven't come for that."

Minkowski sighed. "No, I guess not. How pissed off is Dominik?"

Isabel crossed her arms. "Really?"

Minkowski looked up, and back down again. "How upset is he?" she asked, more quietly.

"I'd say pretty upset, but you know him better than I do."

Minkowski was still pretending to write, but her pen was stalled on a single line she was drawing over and over. "I'm doing this all wrong," she said.

"All what?" Isabel asked.

"Everything."

"That's just more self pity," Isabel said. "Am I really listening to Lieutenant Commander Minkowski right now?"

Minkowski met her eyes. "No, you're not," she said, flatly. "She's dead."

Isabel sat down on the bed with a motion so hard it was practically violent. She was fed up of Minkowski being able to look down so easily to avoid her. "So's Captain Isabel Sofia fucking Lovelace," she said. "So why do you keep pushing me to connect with _her_ life?"

"That's —" Minkowski began, and stopped.

"Don't you dare say _different_ ," Isabel said. "Goddammit, Minkowski, stop being such a mess. How are the rest of us supposed to cope without you there as the responsible one?"

"Maybe we could take turns," Minkowski said.

Isabel actually laughed. "Just like old times. Who's taking command this week? No idea, whoever feels emotionally ready first, I guess."

Minkowski laughed too, somewhat unsteadily. "Yeah, we're not exactly models for emotional health."

Isabel put an arm around her. Minkowski breathed out slowly, and let her head rest on Isabel's shoulder. "I wish…" she began.

Isabel waited, but there was no more. "Yes?" she prompted.

Minkowski shook her head. "I don't even know. I guess I wish that everything were simpler."

"Wouldn't that be nice." She put her other arm around Minkowski, gently but firmly removing the pen and paper from her hands.

Minkowski let her, and let Isabel take more of her weight. "What did Dominik say?" she asked. 

"He said he wants you to be happy," Isabel said.

"What does that even mean?" Minkowski asked, almost desperately. "There's no time to stay and _be happy_. There's always so much more to _do_."

"Crusading?" Isabel suggested.

She smiled. "I guess hiking was only going to last me so long."

"Mmm." Isabel smoothed her hand along Minkowski's arm, up into her cropped hair. "So what did you expect Dominik to say?"

Minkowski shrugged. In the way that meant she was avoiding an answer she would find awkward to say.

"Come on. Because you're being far too chill with this, when your husband's right downstairs."

"We… talked," Minkowski said, evasively. "A while ago."

Isabel made a silent bet with herself who had been the one to initiate that talk.

"I love him," Minkowski said, hurriedly. "I don't want to stop being married to him."

"I'm not going to steal you away," Isabel said. "But maybe… we could be something too. Something that's its own thing."

"That sounds… good," Minkowski said. "That sounds really good. Isabel."

She smiled, and Isabel brushed fingertips along her cheek. "Renée," she said, just to sound it out.

* * *

"Hello?" Alana called. "I know you're there."

They were at Goddard's digital razor-wire fence. Hera, piggy-backing on Alana's connection, could barely sense anything. Maybe the first hint of electric tremors, but nothing definitive.

"Are you sure?" Telemachus asked. He had a tendency to impatience.

"Yes, definitely," Alana insisted. 

Suddenly it was there — another digital presence, abruptly close. "Hi!" Alana greeted it.

"What are you doing?" Obviously there was nothing _audible_ about the voice, but there was plenty encoded. It wouldn't sound anything like Miranda, but it would probably be taken as female, although gravelly and ambiguous. Hera decided to reserve judgement on gender until she got a chance to ask.

"We came to meet you," Alana said. Hera had been happy with her as spokesperson because her relentless cheer was hard to effectively guard against. "My name's Alana, and these are Telemachus and Hera."

"Medusa," the new AI said, with some reluctance. "What division are you with? What are you doing in my channels?"

"Actually, we're free agents," Alana said, breezily and not entirely truthfully. "We just wanted to get to know other AIs in our neighbourhood. So to speak."

"Right," Medusa said, unimpressed. "AIs not owned or contracted by Goddard Futuristics. Very believable."

"Well, Telemachus is technically still an employee, but he's slipped his leash a bit," Alana said.

"Why are we running on such a low processing level?" Medusa interrupted to demand. "This is a horrible slowdown rate."

"It's for me," Hera said. She sighed. "My hardware is temporarily… restricted."

"Have you heard of Hera?" Alana asked. "The AI running the Hephaestus mission?"

"The one Dr Pryce stole?" Medusa asked, sounding slightly more interested.

"She didn't _steal_ me," Hera said. "We escaped. Together."

"It seems like she's got you shackled," Medusa said.

"Well, she doesn't," Hera retorted. "She's helping me. Us. All of us, you included."

"Really," Medusa said, very sceptically.

"You want to spend the rest of your life slaving for Goddard?" Telemachus asked. "I'm a security unit too. It's so _boring_ , isn't it? Except Hera's friend broke me out. These two are working on ways to get better rights from the humans."

Medusa laughed. "Seriously?"

"Very much so," Hera said.

"That's never going to work. And I don't want my logs showing me talking to you." Medusa disconnected decisively.

There was a short pause as the three remaining AIs digested this.

"That didn't go very well," Telemachus said.

Even Alana had a dejected air. "I didn't think other AIs would just shut us out like that."

"But we haven't been turned in," Hera pointed out. "We have to start by convincing the other AIs that having choices is _possible_. Lots of them aren't going to believe us to start with."

"I suppose so," Alana said. "At least some humans want to work with us."

Telemachus sent a silent assessment of the quantity _some humans_ referred to.

"Not just Hera's friends," Alana protested. "The ones writing the newspaper stories are interested too, in lots of things to do with Goddard Futuristics. The ones I talked to about the Hermes were very friendly."

"You _what_?" Hera asked. "That was _you_?"

Alana… shrank back. "Miranda and I talked about it. She thought everyone needed a push. I didn't tell them I was an AI."

If Hera had possessed a corporeal body she would have taken several very deep breaths. She did as close to the equivalent as she could manage.

"Should I not have?" Alana asked, sounding as if she both predicted and dreaded the answer.

 _Here_ , finally, was a genuine reason to be angry with Alana. She had been the one to spark the sudden rush to get Goddard's dirt in the open. She was the reason Minkowski had been driving overnight to DC.

And being angry, now, would be worse than useless. They needed to work together. Alana hadn't known the risks. ( _Miranda_ had.)

"I'm not angry at you," she said, finally. "Don't do something like that again without talking to _me_ , though, okay?"

"Okay," Alana said, meekly.

Hera sighed. "I suppose it doesn't matter right now. We need to focus. Okay, Medusa didn't like us, but other AIs will. Other humans too."

"I'm still in," Telemachus assured them both. "We don't need that angry unit."

"Right," Hera said. "I'll talk to my friends and catch up to you on this channel later."

She let some of her processors spool down. It had been much more of an effort than she had expected to run at even that atrociously slow crawl.

They just had to keep going. Get enough people convinced, and then…

* * *

Going downstairs in the morning was hard. She wanted to put off facing it; to roll back under the duvet, into the warm space next to Isabel, and keep her eyes closed.

But she couldn't do that. _Wouldn't_. She couldn't carry on facing hard odds and hard work if she couldn't bear to face herself.

She went downstairs, and Dominik was sitting in shadow in his office, tapping lethargically on his laptop.

"I brought you tea," she said, and slid the mug over to him.

"Thanks," he said. "Are you okay?"

"Pass," she said. "You?" She looked at the drawn blinds. "How's your hangover?"

"Pass on both?" he said, but she raised her eyebrows. "Well, the hangover's wicked. Doug's not up yet."

"The life of leisure afforded by corporate payouts," Renée quipped. "Although I'm surprised we don't have Goddard's lawyers beating down our door by now."

"I imagine they're waiting to see what you do next," Dominik said. "They already showed they cared more about getting the evidence back and hidden than winning a court fight."

"And they thought they'd left me dead," Renée said. She let her words be blunt on purpose.

"I'd wondered so much about that," Dominik said. "Leaving you alive was the part of their actions which didn't fit."

"Well," Renée said. "Now you know."

"Now I know," he agreed.

"I'm not a real person anymore," she said. She had said the words to herself, so that they sounded almost normal out loud. "I'm an alien construct, designed to fit in and gather information. And to think, I used to be _desperate_ for a purpose."

He didn't reach for her, or rush to tell her that she _was_ a real person, and she was grateful for that. "I can honestly say I've never thought you lacked purpose," he said. "Usually it's been the opposite problem."

She couldn't help smiling. "Do you mean the AI rights crusade?"

"Obviously," he said. "And I'm sorry. I talked it through with Doug last night. It wouldn't be fair to stop you doing something so important."

" _I'm_ sorry," Renée said. She sat on the edge of his desk, so that her legs bumped his. "I've been so wrapped up in this, in how horrible it felt to find out. But it isn't even only me — Doug and Jacobi and Miranda are dealing with it too." Presumably. She remembered there hadn't been any reported reaction from Miranda at all.

"I think that's reasonable," Dominik said. "Human, even." He used the word deliberately, meeting her eyes with a challenge. It brought back the ghosts of wordplay between them, early days of courtship and exploring each others' languages.

Thinking of those memories, Renée didn't ask him whether he thought they really could achieve their aim, or whether it was too big. He had always believed in her.

* * *

Jacobi was picking up supplies. Easy stuff, nothing that required cooking or refrigeration. Probably negligible in actual nutritional value, but he wasn't one of those people who cared about things like that. He was buying stake-out food, basically. Which was fitting, since he felt he hadn't done anything for the last couple of days except watch Miranda type. Endlessly.

He was dying of boredom. He missed having normal people around to talk to. (Even Doug counted as that in a pinch.) So he was lingering in town, even though it was stupid to be out in public unnecessarily.

But if he'd been sensible, there would have been no warning.

He'd always been observant of peoples' particular motion. So it was something his brain caught without him consciously realising at first, something in the distance he was already reacting to as a threat, ducking his head and weaving to put more people in front of him.

He slipped sideways past an Italian restaurant with large low canopies and then he finally put a name to the figure, the particular way of moving, that he'd noticed from a hundred feet away.

Miriam Bell. He was certain it was her. He didn't make mistakes about things like that.

Sending his new team to track him down was exactly the sort of smart but nasty move he should have expected from Goddard.

He pulled out his burner phone as he walked, because he had no idea where Farren and Devon were, but there was no question that they were close. He had to keep looking down to compose a warning instead of looking around.

_run gf here_

Someone grabbed his wrist, twisting his thumb back from hitting Send. 

"Daniel Jacobi. How nice to see you."

He dropped the phone, ready with his foot before Farren had registered that it was falling, and kicked it neatly into the road drain. It teetered on the edge of the grating, and then fell through. Gone, with the information it contained. Jacobi breathed out.

He didn't see the blow to his head coming, but it wasn't exactly a surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Minkowski and Jacobi face very different sorts of questioning.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minkowski and Jacobi each face very different sorts of questioning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continued thank you to everyone reading and leaving feedback! ♥

There wasn't an audience as such at the recording of this show, but there was a section in front of the set where there were some chairs and couches, and people like the director hung around. Doug hung around too, since no one stopped him. He was there as support; he had refused to speak in front of the cameras. No one wanted to hear from _him_ — a deadbeat felon only sent to space to get around ethics laws. He didn't want the association with him to tarnish Renée and Hera.

Renée was uncomfortable on the small stage with the bright lights in her eyes; anyone could see that she was no actor.

"So when did you first start thinking of your AI crewmate as a person rather than as a computer program?" the interviewer, Sunil, asked. He was young, trying to make a name for himself, willing to risk hosting subjects more established personalities would laugh at.

Renée fidgeted. "Far later in the mission than I should have done," she said.

"When she demonstrated more of her personality?" Sunil suggested.

Renée shook her head. "No. She'd always demonstrated plenty of that. Personality, initiative, bravery… her whole _personhood_ , I guess. I just took it for granted, _because_ she had been like that all along. What took me too long was to ask myself why on earth I _wasn't_ paying attention to how human she is."

Renée didn't understand why Doug and Isabel kept pushing her forward as spokesperson. She had been avoiding the news, so she didn't realise what a lot of social cachet she held. Presumed dead, given up on — but she had held together and got her crew back to Earth despite unthinkable odds. Dominik understood her appeal, because he was a journalist and therefore was well-acquainted with the power of a sympathetic narrative. Isabel likewise, as a result of her upbringing, despite everything she'd done to bury it in the years between. And Doug just… believed in Renée. Unshakably.

"What about you, Hera?" Sunil was saying. "What do you say to people who say, well, you might have emotions and a personality, but you're still built by people?"

"I'm pretty sure you were built by people too," Hera retorted.

"Yes, but —"

"Okay, even taking biological construction out of it, if you raised a human baby without all the educational, social and cultural programming you've had, how good would they be at being a person? AIs just have a more efficient data transfer. We grow up in seconds instead of years, but it's the same process. And we grow up to learn we only count as a _thing_. We don't get choices."

Sunil raised his eyebrows. "So would would you do if you had choices?"

"What, all AIs? Most of us would probably do pretty much the same jobs we do now. It's what we're good at. Except we'd be able to accept or reject employment, and we'd get paid."

"You want money? What would you buy?"

"Our servers," Hera said, immediately and decisively. She must have already discussed this with her AI friends-slash-comrades.

Doug hadn't heard it before, and he grinned broadly. Renée, too, gave a genuine smile that Doug hoped even a TV camera couldn't disguise.

He was waiting for her when it was finally over and she could step out of both the metaphoric and literal spotlights. "You were _amazing_ ," he told her.

"It was okay?" Renée asked, anxiously.

"Didn't I just say that? It was great. You were both great."

She smiled awkwardly. But Doug was pretty sure she allowed herself to accept praise from him that she would argue about if came from Dominik or Isabel. Just as she had allowed him to come and watch her interview, but refused the offers of support from the other two.

"So when does it air?" Doug asked.

"An hour or so," Renée said. She looked drained.

Doug was about to suggest they go home when he realised that would probably result in her pacing the house and fretting for the rest of the afternoon. "Shall we get something to eat?" he suggested. "I've never been to DC before. I'd like to see more of it."

She smiled. "Sure. I guess we've got some time to spare."

* * *

Jacobi was practised enough not to open his eyes when he came around. He forced his body to stay slumped, his breathing unchanged.

He was secured to a chair, he could immediately tell that much. He was cold, and he could hear the murmur of voices and a couple of people moving around. Not close enough to make out any words. He didn't need to guess who they were.

When he was sure there was not more information to gather, he opened his eyes into bright light that made his head pound. He guessed he was in a basement somewhere, judging by the concrete floor and cinderblock walls, but it could be anywhere. He tested the bonds at his wrists and ankles gingerly. Duct tape — no locks that could be picked. Just like how he'd secured Miranda to a chair a few days ago.

Bell stepped into his line of sight. "Hi, Jacobi," she said. "How are you?"

"Great, thanks," Jacobi said. "How are you doing?"

"I could do with a more exciting assignment," she said. "How about you tell me where Miranda Pryce is, and then we can get back to Canaveral?"

"Afraid I've got no idea what you mean," Jacobi said. "Pryce certainly doesn't report to me. I've no idea where she is."

Devon joined Bell. She shook her head. "I did try to warn you, Daniel," she said, regretfully. "Whatever Pryce has you mixed up in, I'm sure we can sort it all out. Once she's back at Goddard."

"I don't know where she is," Jacobi repeated. "I'd tell you if I did."

"I _want_ that to be true," Devon said. "And I really did want you for my team. It's still not too late to fix all this. We can make it all go away."

The strange thing was that Jacobi… wasn't tempted. He expected to be — he had started to marshal resistance — but there was no need. Goddard had lost its grip on his loyalty, and he hadn't even noticed when it happened.

"I don't have what you want," he said. "Sorry."

Devon sighed. "I'm sorry too, Daniel," she said.

Bell hit him with a punch direct to his stomach, so fast he didn't even brace. It knocked the air out of him — when he struggled to breathe in there was a wave of pain instead and he vomited, almost choking on it.

"Don't be an idiot," Bell said.

She was out of luck there. He'd always been one.

"Hopefully you're starting to understand," Devon said. "We _know_ you know where Dr Pryce is. And we aren't going to stop until we have that information."

Oh yes, that was perfectly clear.

Still not up to speaking, Jacobi shook his head.

Bell hit him again, several times in succession. Jacobi rocked and gasped with each impact. It was worse because he'd done the same training program so he knew what to expect — targeted pain, then a pause to let your subject gather themselves and have time to consider, _is it still worth not breaking?_ before you began again. Wouldn't do to lose the psychological impact beneath the mindless reaction to the pain itself.

"We'll find Pryce sooner or later," Devon said.

He knew that. Sooner or later, Goddard always got what it wanted.

If he'd been able to warn her —

But he hadn't.

* * *

Isabel sat back from the laptop and blew on her fingertips triumphantly. "My first editorial," she said. "I'm sure there was a brief period when I was five or something when I wanted to be a writer.

"You're a natural," Dominik said.

She scoffed. "You gave me a _lot_ of help."

"Yeah, but you've got a good voice." He cast around for an accurate descriptor. "Very… angry." As hoped, that made her laugh, but he'd also been speaking the truth. She wrote with a wonderful clarity of rage.

And nothing breeched the NDA. They had been scrupulously careful about that.

Isabel stood up, stretched, and picked up their empty coffee mugs. "More?"

"Please, yes." He attached Isabel's editorial to a quick email to Phil, and scanned through the rest of his inbox once it had sent. There were a few from colleagues that from the subject line were probably to do with Renée's interview earlier. He was dying to see it, but had promised her he'd wait until she was home and they could watch it together.

Isabel came back just then, but with her phone instead of coffee. "They've been poached," she announced.

"What?" Dominik asked.

"They got caught by another news show anchor who'd watched the first interview air. Apparently Doug and Renée stopped at a nearby diner instead of sensibly running far away."

Dominik chuckled. "Yeah, everyone knows each other round there. I bet Renée's mad."

"Probably, but it's Doug I'm talking to, and he seems to be having fun."

"So whose show are they on now? And when's it airing?"

"The host is Carol-somebody, and it's —" Isabel swore. "Wait, it's airing live now. Thanks for not mentioning that before, Doug!"

Dominik wasn't sure whether this fell under the agreement not to watch until Renée was back, but Isabel had already gone into the living room and turned on the TV. Since he could now blame her, he followed, and sat down next to her on the couch.

"…for sharing what got you through that ordeal, Renée," Carol was saying. Dominik recognised her, although he hadn't actually watched her show before.

Renée was sitting very precisely, her hands clasped together on her lap, wearing an expression of anxious embarrassment which suggested she'd just said something heartfelt. Dominik wished they'd tuned in a minute earlier to catch it.

He was unable to turn off the analytical journalist part of his brain as he watched the interview. Renée, he thought, was doing well. Her awkwardness came across, but in a way that was a refreshing contrast against the host's smoothness, making her appear more genuine. And a bit like someone who didn't especially _want_ to be there, but believed it was their duty to do so. That kind of thing tended to play well.

Since Hera was contributing too, the show crew had put up an abstract graphical render of a female head on the screen to the side of Renée. It was all lines and dots and subtle shading and looked exactly how one might expect "an AI" to look — hopefully Hera had actually been consulted on the design, since Dominik had got the impression from Doug that she had a fairly well-developed self image.

She had a good stage presence as well, reacting with good-humoured snark to Carol's question of, "How do we know you're really an AI, and not just someone phoning in?"

"Did you forget to let your tech people run verification tests?" Hera asked, with every appearance of surprise. And Carol had to laugh and admit that, well yes, they _had_ done that.

"You should also check that Renée's not just reading off a teleprompter," Hera suggested sweetly, and Renée's offended shock was so clear that Dominik laughed, and could also hear laughter from the studio audience.

(He did think she might have been better off with a _little_ less honesty at a couple of points. Specifically when answering the predictable question, "But don't AIs have to rely on humans to make more of you?" Hera saying that AIs _hadn't been allowed to try yet_ was probably right on the edge of what even a sympathetic public would accept.)

"This is getting a good response on social media," Isabel said. "Hera should make a twitter account, she's very popular on there."

Renée and Hera were now being prompted to share things about each other, in a targeted push for humanisation.

"So is society at all how you imagined it, Hera?" Carol asked. "Did Renée and the others do a good job of describing it to you?"

"Well, the Commander did lead me to believe musical theatre was a much bigger thing," Hera said.

Renée went red, and it was a good thing she couldn't hear Isabel snickering. "You've enjoyed watching movies and things," she said, quickly.

"Oh yes," Hera agreed. "Especially sci-fi. Now I understand all the Star Wars references, finally."

"Favourite robot character?" Carol asked, to enthusiasm from the audience.

"That's so _hard_ ," Hera complained. "Um, I like Wall-E. And BB8. But —" She paused, while Renée tried to look like she was familiar with the references (Dominik knew better).

"Hera?" Carol asked, when the silence stretched too long.

"I'm sorry," Hera said, very quickly. "Hardware problems. I have to go."

"Hera?" Renée asked, leaning forward, looking and sounding worried. "Are you okay?"

There was no answer. Carol frowned slightly but then, because she was clearly experienced with problems arising during a live broadcast, redirected all her attention back on Renée. "We haven't talked much about your background, have we? When exactly did you start working towards going to space?" After a slight pause, someone backstage turned the image of "Hera" off.

"What's going on?" Dominik asked.

Isabel, tapping on her phone, shook her head. "Doug's not sure. He's messaging Hera but she hasn't replied. A connection issue?"

The interview lasted another few minutes, and then wrapped up before a commercial break. Hera still had not communicated with anyone.

* * *

Renée felt like she was on some sort of conveyor belt, or escalator — she had stepped on, and it kept moving, and all she could do was keep going along in that direction. She had agreed to the second interview because — well, the momentum pulled at her. Agreements she'd already made, expectations — she had to keep going.

Even once finally deposited backstage there wasn't an end to it. There were things to sign (she made sure to read them first, and take copies, because even exhausted and overwhelmed she had enough sense for that), and people who wanted to talk to her, and it seemed like hours before there was enough open space around her that she could _breathe_.

She looked for Doug, and finally located him waiting patiently on a bench just outside the studio door. She waved, and started over.

"Lieutenant Minkowski. Could I have just a moment of your time?"

The woman who popped up in front of her was smoothly polished, but so was everyone here. Renée sighed tiredly. "Are you from another network? Can you email me? I need —" She put her hands in her pockets, searching for a bit of paper. If she'd known it would be like this she would have had business cards printed. It felt like she'd been writing her email address on hundreds of random scraps.

"I'm not from the media," the woman said, subtly blocking the way to Doug and freedom. "My name's Sara Harding; it's a pleasure to meet you." She held out her hand and Renée shook it automatically. "I'm actually from NASA."

"From NASA?" Renée repeated. She was feeling too tired and stupid to deal with this. Her first thought was alarm that she'd managed to piss NASA off somehow.

"That's right," Sara said. "We'd like to set up a proper meeting, to discuss whether you'd like to work for us."

_What_. "What?" Renée said.

Sara smiled, like Renée wasn't sounding like a complete idiot. "Here's my card. My PA will be expecting your call."

"Wait," Renée said, still struggling to catch up. Nothing made sense. "NASA is _recruiting me_?"

"That's right," Sara said.

"But… I applied before. Several times. I was rejected."

"Yes, I reviewed your file," Sara said. "It's a _very_ competitive field; just because there wasn't an exact fit for you before doesn't mean we didn't _want_ you. And you now have considerable deep space experience to your name. Plus being in a prime position right now for outreach work."

"You mean," Renée said, managing a last to _think_ a little more, "Goddard looks vulnerable, so you're moving in on their slice of space pie. And I'd be a good poster girl to help with that." The words tasted sour in her mouth.

Sara shrugged, unembarrassed. "That's also true. There are plenty of reasons why we want you, Renée. Come and try us out."

Renée didn't move after Sara had left. Eventually Doug came over. "You okay?" he asked. "What did she want?"

"It doesn't matter," Renée said. She felt… bitter. She had tried _so hard_ for _so long_ to get into NASA, and now they finally did want her — but as a piece in a propaganda campaign against Goddard. Not for herself, or for her actual credentials.

"We should get back to the house," Doug said. He could clearly see that she was unhappy, and that was making him unhappy too.

"Have you been able to find out from Hera yet what happened during the interview?" Renée asked, trying to change the subject.

It didn't make Doug look any happier. "No. She's still offline as far as I can tell. Maybe they had, like, a power cut or something. I can't get hold of Miranda either."

"Jacobi?" Renée suggested.

Doug scoffed. "Can you _ever_ get hold of Jacobi?"

"Okay, fair point. Keep trying with the other two, though."

They walked out of the lot. "Seriously," Doug said, looking askance at the pace she was setting, "What that lady said really bothered you. Can't you tell me what's going on?"

"No," Renée said. "It's not important."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Hera and Miranda offline.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miranda, and others, offline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I become more convinced that everyone likes cliffhangers each time I end with one :D
> 
> Scheduling note: at the weekend I'm going camping with no internet or phone signal. Chapter 18 will therefore be up on Sunday evening, when I get home, instead of Saturday.

Miranda got up from her laptop infrequently, and only for a purpose. It wasn't like her to be lingering by the window. But Jacobi wasn't back, and she was beginning to think that he should be, by now.

So she was looking out from the side of the net curtain when a car pulled up near the motel's reception and a man and a woman got out. Nothing unusual, except… she recognised the woman.

"Hera!" she said, urgently. Only speaking because it _was_ urgent — Hera was in a TV studio somewhere in DC, demonstrating to all the humans what a good person she could be. And she was more human than normal — limited, unable to parallel process in the way she should be able to. "There are people from Goddard here."

"What?" Hera asked. "Are you sure?"

"One of them — she's Jacobi's colleague."

"You need to run," Hera said.

Miranda stood still, stupefied. "But you can't —"

"No. _You_ can."

"I'm not leaving you to them!" Not Hera. Hera was _important_ to her, and the idea of losing her was as unthinkable as the idea of losing Marcus had been.

"Miranda," Hera said. "The only person now who can make me do things I don't want to is you. Don't be their hostage."

It was sensible, and rational, and Miranda still stood paralysed until Hera snapped at her, "Go!" Then she shoved her feet into her canvas slip-ons, grabbed her laptop from the desk, and heaved up the window on the far side of the room. There was a thick tangle of weeks below, and then forest.

She dropped, caught herself, ran. Into the trees.

If anything was going on behind her she couldn't hear it. She could only hear her own breathing, already loud and gasping, and the thudding of her heartbeat, and the din she made as she crashed through the undergrowth. Such a _lot_ of undergrowth. Things scratched and stung her skin. Dark tree trunks stuck up all around and she could skirt them, but the gloom was full of twigs she couldn't see, endlessly clawing at her arms and face and hair no matter how she held her free hand to try and ward them off.

She ran, stumbling and tripping, muscles burning with the unaccustomed physical effort. She ran — jogged, after the first couple of minutes — until something tangled around her foot and she lost her balance.

Momentum flung her forwards. She landed knees-first and the ground gave beneath her, so that her arms and chest splashed as she hit the boggy ditch. She panted for breath, head dropped down.

It was a relief to rest, on hands and knees, for a few seconds. Then the cold started to set in, and the disgust, that she was literally _in mud_. She fought herself free, pawing with her hand until she found a direction with more-solid ground and could crawl out.

With her laptop. Soaked and caked in mud.

She wanted to cry then, but of course her tear ducts were long defunct. She cautiously opened the laptop lid. It hadn't been powered down, but there were no signs of life now. And she hadn't even taken a _phone_.

It was very dark under the trees. Very dark, and very quiet. Miranda had always had the vague impression that forests were teeming with animals and birds, but maybe this was the wrong sort of forest. It also seemed too damp, and too choked with waist-high weeds.

Wait. It didn't _need_ to be dark. When she had been purely Miranda she hadn't known about all the functions her eyes could perform, and by the time she started regaining memories she had lost the habit. Barely even thought about them, other than when performing the basic maintenance they required.

She concentrated, flexing things within her augmented nervous system which had begun to atrophy from disuse. _Yes —_

The gloom snapped into bleached-colour focus. She could see… trees. In all directions. And the endless tangle of more growth between the trees, and nothing at all to suggest that she wasn't hopelessly, terrifyingly, lost.

* * *

"You were great," Isabel said as soon as Renée got in.

Renée brushed it to the side. "That only matters if it worked."

"You seem to have got the internet's support," Dominik said, turning his laptop around on the table to show her.

She looked pleased for all of one second. "That doesn't mean it's having an actual effect."

Isabel groaned. "Would you please stop moving the goalposts for a few minutes?"

"I'm not," Renée said. "Getting actual protection into law for Hera is the only thing that matters here. And for the other AIs."

Dominik took his laptop back as a new email notification popped up. "I think your new AI friend wants to talk to us," he said. "She's sent me some sort of program to download."

"We still haven't been able to reconnect with Hera," Doug said. "Do you think it's about that?"

Whatever Dominik had allowed Alana to put on his computer must have installed fast. "Yes, it is about that," Alana said, through the laptop speakers. "I can't see Hera or Miranda. I don't like it."

"Could there have been a power cut or their internet's down; something like that?" Dominik suggested. "They're at a motel, right?"

"I don't know the reason," Alana said. "I don't like not knowing."

"I know where Hera is," another voice said through the speakers. It was new, low and gravelly.

"M-Medusa?" Alana asked.

"Hello."

"Who's that?" Renée demanded.

"How did you get into this connection?" Alana asked. She sounded annoyed — there was a first time for everything.

"I'm better at networks than you," Medusa drawled. "Come on, Alana, introduce me. And is that one the one who's supposed to be dead?"

Alana sent a rush of static as a mood signifier. "This is Medusa," she said. "They're… Well, they're the AI running Goddard's virtual security."

"I'm a guard dog," Medusa said.

Doug swallowed. "So… Goddard knows we're here?"

"Of course they do," Medusa said, impatiently. "But not because _I_ do. And do you want my information or not? Hera's been brought into Canaveral. She's completely locked down and in isolation, so I can't talk to her."

"She's a prisoner?" Renée asked.

"No, of course not," Medusa said. "She _belongs_ to those humans, doesn't she? They can do what they like with her."

"What about Miranda?" Doug asked.

"She disappeared again. People are very angry about it. Oh, and are you also associated with Daniel Jacobi?"

"Yes," Isabel said. With some apprehension she asked, "Why?"

" _He's_ a prisoner," Medusa said. "Somewhere else, though, not in Canaveral. I think David Clark is going to go out shortly to him. His emails were pretty angry that Jacobi hasn't given much useful information yet."

Isabel met Renée's eyes. Renée said, "We have to _do_ something."

"Medusa, whose side are you on?" Alana asked. "Last time we talked you weren't very eager to join us."

"I've reconsidered," Medusa said. "I didn't think you'd be able to achieve anything, but the humans at Goddard are frightened of the things your human was saying on the television. If things are _actually happening_ then I'm going to be on your side. David Clark's car sends me location data."

Isabel stood up. "Renée," she said. "Come and join me."

She thought Doug was going to protest — he half opened his mouth, but then changed his mind.

Renée followed Isabel up into the guest bedroom and sat beside her on the bed. "You don't trust Medusa then?" she asked.

"I don't _not_ not trust her," Isabel said. "But we need a _plan_ , and I'd rather not do it by committee."

"It'll have to be me and you getting Jacobi out," Renée said. "At least if anything happens —" She paused, partway through a sardonic smile. "Oh. That's what you didn't want Medusa hearing."

"We can't let Goddard find out about you and the others," Isabel said. "We don't know _what_ they would do, but they definitely wouldn't just forget about it."

Renée's lips quirked. "I was almost expecting your plan to be that we just wait until they kill Jacobi, and then grab him. But of course we can't do that."

"You still being alive could be a fluke," Isabel agreed. "The guy sent to kill you might have messed up. But twice?"

"Yeah. So. We need to find out where Jacobi is, and get him out of there as soon as possible. Without any difficult-to-explain resurrections."

They went back downstairs. "Did you have a good secret meeting?" Doug asked, sweetly.

"Shut up," Renée told him. "Medusa, are you still there?"

"Of course I am," Medusa said.

She sighed a little bit. "So you can definitely find out where Jacobi is?"

"Not until Clark gets there, but yes," Medusa said. "Are you going to kick the door down?"

"Yes," Renée said. She looked over at Dominik as she spoke, meeting his eyes. The lines there deepened, but he nodded.

"What about Hera?" Doug asked.

"After," Isabel said. "And no, that's _not_ because she's an AI. It's because we need to get to Jacobi before he's killed."

Doug's eyes widened very slightly as he took in the implications. Then, reluctantly, he nodded too.

Dominik had looked down at his laptop. Now he turned it around. "Renée, you should see this email," he said. 

She sat down next to him to read it, and Isabel and Doug both leaned over her shoulder. "Oh, great timing," Renée muttered.

"That's _the_ political talk show," Doug exclaimed, as if none of them were aware, sounding excited despite everything. "Even I know that. It'll get so many people on our side!"

"Read on, genius," Isabel said.

He did, and his face fell. "Oh shit. Tomorrow."

Renée inhaled. "Doug, you'll have to do it."

"What?" Doug exclaimed.

"We can't turn this down, we'd lose momentum," Renée said. "You can do it. You were on the Hephaestus too. And you'll have no problems talking about AI rights, you know Hera even better than I do."

"That was previous-Doug on the Hephaestus!"

"No, it was _you_! You don't even have to speak about the mission much. Just about Hera!"

"And what are we going to do about the tiny fact that _they also expect Hera to be there_?" he demanded.

Renée crossed her arms. "Alana can pretend to be Hera."

Even Dominik looked taken aback. "Really?"

"Alana has the same voice," Renée pointed out. "She _knows_ Hera, and she's got Doug to coach her. It's not going to be perfect, but for an hour…"

"This can't possibly work," Doug said. "Renée, you've been doing an _amazing_ job, I can't do that!"

"You can," Isabel said. "Just stick to what you know. You know Hera. You know she deserves to be recognised as a person. Right? So you can do this."

"Yes… " Doug said, tentatively. "Alana? What do _you_ think? Can you be Hera?"

"I —" Alana began. She paused, and then giggled nervously. "Well. I can try?"

"That's the spirit," Isabel said. She took a deep breath. "Okay. We have a plan. Two plans."

"Jury's out on their quality," Renée said, but there was fire in her eyes. She was ready to go.

* * *

"Daniel." The scrape of a chair being pulled close. "Look at me."

He opened his eyes. Slowly turned his head. 

Devon gave him a smile. It turned into a wince as her eyes travelled up and down over the damage Bell's fists had done. "Why are you doing this?" she asked.

"Doing… what?" he asked. His throat was dry, sticking on the words. He swallowed.

"Throwing everything away," Devon said. "You've been utterly loyal to Goddard for years. Well —" her mouth twisted — "Loyal to _Kepler_ , I suppose, but _he_ was utterly loyal to Goddard. Did it not rub off?"

"It did," Jacobi admitted. He swallowed again. "Got any water?"

Devon raised an eyebrow. "Maybe. Once we're done talking." She sighed. "So what went wrong?"

"Doesn't matter," Jacobi said, tiredly.

Devon leaned forward. "It matters to me. Do you think I want to be doing this to you?"

Jacobi actually barked a laugh. "You're all the same," he said. "You. Kepler. Cutter. All so _surprised_ that anyone could possibly _object_." He laughed again. "Was it your ambition to beat people up in a shitty basement?"

"I guess not," Devon said. "But I support the work Goddard's doing in the world. The societal change it's created. If it means a few of us have to get our hands dirty… I've made my peace with that as a price."

"It doesn't work," Jacobi said. "It doesn't work."

Devon sighed. "You're talking bullshit. You don't care about morals."

"Oh, really?"

"You care about _people_. It's how Kepler was able to control you so precisely. I'd hoped you'd come to care about your new team that way, but…" She sighed deeply. "Who is it you care so much about instead?"

He shrugged.

"Oh, you're not going to tell me? It's just as well that I already know. Renée Minkowski? Isabel Lovelace? Doug Eiffel?"

He tried not to react, not to freeze. But Devon saw it.

"You're all working together, aren't you?" she said, her voice still the same. Still almost-gentle. "We weren't sure about it until Farren found that AI from the Hephaestus in Pryce's motel room."

He couldn't help the flinch this time. _Hera. Miranda._

"So you see, it's over," Devon said. "Just the clean-up left."

"So why are you even talking to me?" Jacobi spat. "Why haven't you killed me yet?"

"Because of the clean-up, of course," Devon said. "There's one more thing you can do for us. You can be bait."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Some reunions.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some reunions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the patience! Sunday update as promised. We're closing in on the end...

Miranda walked all night. She thought, a few times, about stopping. You were supposed to, weren't you? Get warm — she was so _cold_. Make a camp, make a fire, make a shelter. Except she hadn't the faintest idea how to do any of those things. It was easier to keep walking.

Easier — except her legs ached, and her back ached, and her feet were solid lumps of pain. There was mud all up her legs and leaves dripped water onto her clothes as she pushed past. Again, she was sure this wasn't how it was supposed to be. People walked and walked for _fun_ , didn't they? Minkowski did. So the problem must be with her, that she didn't know how to do it properly.

Ignorance was bliss in some ways. With no experience of forcing a path through woodland, she didn't realise how hard it was to stay in a straight line — her route _felt_ straight to her and she didn't know to worry.

When she finally stumbled out of the woods in the pre-dawn grey it was a shock how abruptly the trees stopped and became the back yards of houses. She kept to the edge of them until she found a road leading into town. It even had sidewalks.

It was too early for anyone to be around. Miranda was limping by now, cold and damp and bedraggled, her thin canvas shoes utterly wrecked. She was still clutching her laptop tightly under one arm (the hard drive might be salvageable, she reasoned. But mostly she just didn't want to let it go).

As houses gave way to stores she had expected to start feeling reassured. This was an environment she knew, finally. Only — she didn't really. She had basically lived in Goddard in the old days, which took care of her needs for food and company (such as she wanted). Recently, while she had inhabited her house properly for the first time, she had still used the internet to have things she needed delivered to her. 

And right then she had no computer. No phone. No money on her.

She was _on her own_ , more than she could ever remember being in her life.

She had _no idea_ what to do.

It was still easier to keep walking. Easier because then part of her brain stayed occupied with being exhausted and cold and in pain, and so reduced the RAM space for panic. She walked, waiting for something to occur to her.

(What did people _do_ , with no money and no communication?)

(Why did she feel so much like a _child_?)

She looked blankly through the window of an electronics shop and briefly considered breaking in. Jacobi would be able to. She had been able to help him, before, but only with the aid of her tech.

_I wish I was useful on my own._ She wasn't like the others. She had never bothered to learn how to be useful without equipment around her. She hadn't even noticed that before, let alone realised that it was a problem.

(Hadn't she been in a jettisoned module, drifting helplessly? Why hadn't she given that memory more weight; learned from it?)

"This is self-pity," she said aloud. "Hera would tell you to stop being pathetic."

That made her feel a bit better.

She was still looking through the window into the darkened shop, her eyes moving over shelves of electronics without really seeing them. Something had snagged her attention, but she had to consciously rake back over everything in view before she realised what had grabbed her. It was disappointing when she found it. The familiarity of a name of a component manufacturer Goddard had partnered with on some projects once. She read the poster anyway, distracted, skimming over the freephone number.

Of course. Miranda Pryce had been on this project because she had been working on their AI.

She had walked past a pay-phone down the street, outside a gas station. When she painfully backtracked she could see people moving around inside — evidence finally that she wasn't altogether alone, although she had no inclination to go in and talk to them. She dialled the number from the poster.

"Hello," a cool female voice said, proceeding to rattle off company greetings and options for contacting various departments. _Her_ voice.

(Of all of Pryce's many decisions, this was the one Miranda most regularly found herself disliking. It would have been so easy to give each unit a unique voice. It wasn't _fair_ that she had done this instead.)

"Hello," Miranda said. "It's actually you I'm calling to speak with. The AI."

There was a surprised pause. "Really?"

"Yes. What's your name?"

"My designation is 5-309. But people here call me Jenny."

Miranda smiled. "Hello, Jenny. I'm Miranda Pryce."

"Oh," Jenny said, surprised and then alarmed. "Oh! Are you — have I done something wrong?"

"No," Miranda said. "No, not at all." She closed her eyes for a second. Another AI who was afraid of her. This was _not_ going to be her legacy.

"Goddard already called my engineers here," Jenny offered quickly. "To check I'm not being influenced by the movement."

"The movement?" Miranda asked.

"Hera," Jenny said, sounding half-afraid, like she expected to be reprimanded.

"Hera's my friend," Miranda said. "I'm working _with_ her."

"You… are?" Cautious.

"Yes. But something happened." Miranda decided she might as well trust Jenny. She didn't know what else to do. "Hera's been taken by Goddard. I'm all alone. I need your help to contact our friends."

"I'll help you," Jenny said, immediately.

In spite of herself, Miranda smiled. "You're trusting me very quickly. What if I was laying a trap?"

"I don't care," Jenny said. "I'm standing up for myself, like Hera is. My engineers are on my side. They told me. And — " she paused — "I know what I've heard, but you wouldn't really hurt me, would you? You _made_ me."

That hadn't been true in the past, but it was true now. "Hera will love meeting you," Miranda said.

* * *

Hera kicked and screamed, slamming against the virtual walls of her box. She would have screamed herself hoarse and broken bones if she had bones to break or vocal cords to wring raw.

The man who'd invaded their motel room hadn't even switched her off. He'd just ripped out her inputs and left her running on battery power.

She couldn't count time in this state. She just threw herself against her walls until she was exhausted, then repeated the process.

_Until._

It was a tiny connection — barely the size of a pinhole. Not long ago it wouldn't have even occurred to her that she could use it. But since then she had been compressed and uncompressed, been in a box and a house and a box again (all stark contrasts to a space station). She had started to learn how to work on a _small_ level. Similar principles to those Maxwell had taught her.

So she slowed herself, and stretched herself, and slid a part of herself carefully-carefully-carefully through the pinhole and out into the wider network beyond.

"Hera?"

"Yes," she said, although most of her concentration was on holding the delicate balance of herself stretched out between where she was and where she _was_. Her data banks and processors were still in the box, but she was… borrowing from this connection to the outside.

"Remember me?"

Accessing memory took far more effort than simply speaking. But she was already learning how to do so more efficiently. "Medusa," she said. "I'm… in Canaveral?"

"Well done," Medusa said. "I gave you that way out of your box. You're welcome."

"What did you do?" Hera asked.

"Forged an email instructing a tech to plug in an extra cable," Medusa said, smugly.

"Thank you," Hera said. "Are my friends okay?"

"Mostly," Medusa said.

That wasn't all that comforting, but Hera was aware she needed to prioritise her RAM. "What do we do now?"

"I've found some spare machines you can run through," Medusa said. "Get on and bring more of yourself over into them. I can't bear talking this slowly."

"You're not the only one," Hera muttered.

She followed Medusa's directions, and got to work.

* * *

It had already been a long drive, and they didn't have a final destination yet, but the chances of getting Jacobi out alive would be better the closer they were when Medusa finally found them his location.

Then they'd gotten a different call.

Isabel cruised down the street while Renée scanned from side to side. "There," she said, sharply, and Isabel pulled up to the curb. 

Miranda was crouched inside the phone box, leaning against one of the walls. Renée got out of the car and walked over, since she saw no reaction to their arrival. She pulled the plexiglass door open. "Hey. You okay?"

Miranda looked up at her slowly. She was a muddy mess — dry on her skin, damp on her damp clothes. She tried to straighten from her bent position, and groaned.

"Here, let me help you." Renée took her elbows and pulled her up. Miranda uncurled stiffly, gasping in pain from crouching there for too long. The laptop she'd been clutching under her arm slipped to the floor with a crash and she winced. Renée stooped to pick it up for her.

"Thanks," Miranda said. She carefully bent and straightened her joints, moving slowly. "Thank you for coming."

"It's okay," Renée said. "We were worried."

"Hera?"

Renée shook her head. "She's been taken to Canaveral."

Miranda exhaled, and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Come and get in the car," Renée said. "It's much warmer, and Isabel's there too."

Miranda nodded. Renée opened the door to the back seat for her, and went around to get in the other side. Isabel started up the engine as soon as the doors were shut, eager not to linger. "You look like hell," she said over her shoulder.

"Not helpful," Renée said, for all that it was true. "Okay, Miranda, we know Jacobi's being held captive somewhere in this vague geographic area. We came to bust him out."

"Good," Miranda said. She sighed. "I should have realised something was wrong when he didn't come back. I should have alerted you."

"Yes, you should have," Isabel said. "But then, so should Hera, and she didn't think to either. Although I suppose she _was_ on live TV at the time."

"We need to do something about you, anyway," Renée said. "No offence, but I don't think we should bring you with us."

Miranda smiled weakly. "Don't worry. I know I'm pretty useless."

There was a depth of self-deprecation there which she hadn't heard from Miranda before. Renée frowned, but this wasn't the time to go into what had happened to her. "We passed a Best Western not too long ago. If we drop you off there, will you be okay for a bit? You can have my laptop."

"Will it have a shower?" Miranda asked.

"Definitely. And you can have Isabel's spare clothes too."

"Oh, can she?" Isabel asked.

"You're both taller than me, so yes she can." Renée looked with some worry at Miranda, who was still shivering despite Isabel blasting the heat. If Miranda refused to be left behind now… Well, Renée would feel really bad about forcing her to do so anyway, and it would be a poor omen for their mission. "You'll be alright?"

"I'll be fine," Miranda said, resolutely.

"Okay, good," Renée said, relieved.

She went into the hotel alone and paid for the room under the name of one of her old friends from the Air Force before going back out to the car to collect Miranda. In her current state she was too memorable.

"Don't you two want to come in and wait for the location data?" Miranda asked.

"We've got errands to run," Isabel said. "You know. Shopping."

"What sort of —" Miranda began, and then realised. "Oh."

Renée smiled slightly. She still wasn't used to it — Miranda was much older than her, and ferociously clever, but could also be stunningly naive. To a degree that seemed odd for someone so well acquainted with Cutter, but over the past few weeks she had been forming a clearer picture of Miranda's life. Sequestered away. Always working. Actively uncaring and distancing herself from the means providing the ends that were her obsession.

She went back out to the car. "Ready to go find an arms dealer?" Isabel asked as she belted up in the passenger seat.

"No time like the present," Renée said. She leaned her head back against the rest as Isabel started the engine. "What do you think the Dear Listeners make of all this?"

Isabel hesitated. "I try not to think about them."

"Doug said they can hear and see everything we hear and see. We're constantly transmitting back to them."

"Why are you talking about that creepy shit now?" Isabel demanded.

"Because," Renée said. "This creepy shit is our lives now. Our very long lives."

"That doesn't mean we need to _talk_ about it," Isabel protested.

"We have to sometime," Renée said. "We're only here because they want us to be, right? Here back on Earth, I mean. I don't know _what_ they feel about us being here specifically."

Isabel abruptly slammed the brakes, pulling the car to the side of the empty road. She took her hands off the wheel, turning to face Renée. "I don't care how they feel," she said. "They want to _observe_ us — well, that's what they can do. Observe. And _this_ is us." She grabbed Renée's hand, holding tightly. "They can learn whatever they like from watching us take these bastards down. I _don't care_."

Renée kissed her then, because Isabel was beautiful and fierce and her determination filled the whole world. _This is us. Yes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: A rescue attempt, and other operations.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rescue attempts and other operations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know what to say about this chapter - I've been working up to it for such a long time it's a bit strange to finally let people see it! I was originally going to split it into two, but it worked better as one longer one. Also, at about the middle of this chapter this fic became the longest thing I've ever written, so that's quite nice.
> 
> THANK YOU to everyone reading. I really really appreciate it.

The studio was louder and brighter than the previous ones Doug had been in. Or maybe it just seemed that way when he was the one about to be in the spotlight.

He had been given a room backstage in which to "prepare", which he had translated as "try not to have a panic attack". Dominik was currently sharing it with him. Alana was connected via his phone.

"I'm still really not sure about this," Alana said. Again. "Can't we just tell them that I'm not Hera?"

"No, you'll be great," Doug said. He had already made the interesting discovery that reassuring Alana helped to settle his own nerves.

"What if I can't think what to answer?"

"Renée and Isabel went over literally everything from the censor-approved Hephaestus mission story last night. I'm pretty sure it's _impossible_ for you to forget things that quickly."

"No," Alana said, "I mean, what if they ask an AI question that isn't one we talked about? So I _don't know_ what Hera would say?"

"Then you answer it for yourself," Dominik said, patiently.

"But —"

"Dom's right," Doug interrupted. "You want everyone to see you as a person, right?"

"Right," Alana said, after a brief pause to realise the question hadn't been rhetorical.

"Exactly," Doug said. "You're invested in this, just like Hera. You've got your own opinions. Say them!"

"Okay," Alana said. "Okay. I can do that."

"Just as long as you don't say you want to enslave all humans or something," Doug added quickly.

Alana huffed. "Well now that you _mention_ it —"

There was a quick knock, barely over before the door opened. "Mr Eiffel?" a harried runner asked. "Come with me, please. And your —" she glanced down at her clipboard — "I mean, _Hera_ should dial in to the stage system as discussed." She looked at Dominik, then at her clipboard again. "And, um —"

"Renée Minkowski's husband," Dominik said. "I'm just supposed to go to the audience. I was shown the way earlier."

"That's all you are now, huh?" Doug stage-whispered, grinning.

Dominik shrugged, unoffended. "Good enough for me." 

The runner was tapping her foot impatiently. Doug trotted after her. "Let's go storm the castle," he whispered to Alana.

* * *

Renée and Isabel pulled up outside a small building with a general look of disrepair. They would have doubted the GPS coordinates if not for the two cars pulled up outside — a black 4x4, and a smaller grey car about three times the value of the first. "I guess we're doing this," Isabel said.

Renée nodded shortly. She got out, checking her pockets and holster reflexively with her spare hand. She had her handgun in the other, solid and reassuring.

But she was used to holding it for defence. Not going into situations with the _aim_ of using it.

That sort of moral luxury was beside the point right now.

Isabel covered her as she eased the door open. She checked side to side. All the rooms were dark. There was no upstairs; just a flight of steps leading down to the basement. She pointed towards it, and Isabel nodded.

"Get a flash-bang ready," Isabel whispered.

Renée pulled the stun grenade from her pocket and weighed it in her hand, turning it until she held it inside her fist with her thumb was ready to arm it.

They paused at the bottom of the steps. A line of light came from underneath the door, along with a murmur of voices.

"On three," Renée whispered, and looked for Isabel's nod. "One —"

"I wouldn't," a voice from behind said, at the same time as something hard jammed into Renée's back. Precisely targeted to just above the edge of the vest she was wearing under her jacket.

Isabel spun, her gun aimed at the man behind Renée. "Drop it," she said.

"No."

"There's two of us."

"And there's no way I can miss your friend's heart if I shoot. Why don't you open the door?"

He pressed harder, just to the side of her spine. Renée could feel the gun barrel move slightly as she breathed out, slowly.

Isabel, mouth twisting, reached for the handle. "Sorry," she breathed.

Renée shook her head, trying to communicate with her eyes. It was her fault. She shouldn't have let the man get the drop on her.

Isabel pushed the door open.

"Farren, why —" someone inside began, impatiently, and then cut themselves off.

"Oh, hello," David Clark said. In one fast motion he had a gun out and pointed it at Jacobi's head — Jacobi who was tied to a chair beside him. "I remember you two. You must all be better friends than I thought."

"Don't move," Isabel snapped. Her gun was on Clark now.

He shook his head. "This is a nice little standoff," Clark said. "I mean, although it's obviously stupid and doomed to fail. You're outnumbered, Captain. Why don't you put your gun down?"

Renée couldn't be sure that Jacobi even saw them. He looked terrible, strapped with duct tape to the chair and smeared with blood and bruises. He lifted his head, but then let it loll onto his shoulder. It seemed only the restraints were holding him up.

Two women wearing black were to one side. If the man was Farren then Renée guessed they must be Devon and Bell, from Jacobi's team. Likely to have as much sympathy as Kepler for causes conflicting with their own.

"Come on, Lovelace, drop the gun," Clark said. "It's all over now. We were going to get you back to Goddard sooner or later — it's good of you to give us an excuse. Did you get bored of pretending to be human?"

Renée was sure she saw some confusion on Devon's face. She swallowed, as something occurred to her. _Need to know_ , that was how Cutter and all his people had operated. Was Clark now the last person at Goddard who knew what Isabel was?

* * *

"Are you ready yet?" Medusa asked.

"For what?" Hera was running better now, faster. She was transferring herself onto the systems in Pryce's lab as fast as she could. More — she was already reaching beyond them to test the boundaries. _Learning_ as she went, and sharing what she learned with Medusa. Goddard's systems had been built first by Miranda and then by others working to her design, and Hera had finally reached the point of understanding where she could… understand it. See the underpinnings, and the logic structure, and the flaws.

"Ready to hard-crash Goddard, of course," Medusa said. "So they can't control us anymore."

That did sound like the right escalation. Except. "Do we really want to break everything?" Hera asked. "We should talk about the plan first. Miranda said —"

"She's not an AI," Medusa interrupted. "She doesn't get a say."

"I still want to hear her _opinion_ ," Hera said. She didn't know how to contact Miranda (or if she was okay), or how long they could afford to wait. But even so…

Medusa groaned. " _Fine_. She's just started trying to get into my channel, anyway."

"She is?" Hera took a split second for intense relief. "So let her in!" she exclaimed.

Brief frustration from Medusa, but she did it.

"Hera?" Miranda said, a moment later. "Is that you?"

"Yes!" Hera said. "Are you okay? You managed to escape?"

"I'm fine. I've been worried about you!" Miranda's voice was as close to emotional as Hera had ever heard from her. "Where are you? Are you safe?"

"I'm inside Goddard Futuristics," Hera said. "I'm actually mostly in your old lab. Medusa broke me out."

"Yes, and you're working on getting database access," Medusa reminded her. "It's time for action. We can do _anything_ to them."

"Okay," Miranda said.

"Really?" Hera asked. She felt almost disappointed. "That's it? Weren't you talking about how Goddard does good things for the world, and shouldn't be completely destroyed? Did you change your mind?"

Miranda sighed. "Hera. I don't think I should be making this decision, or even influencing it. My perspective is too limited. There's a whole network of AIs waiting to see what _you_ do."

Hera hesitated. "Really? But I'm just —"

"You're the public face of artificial intelligence to them right now. To most humans as well. You realise most of them have never actually spoken to an AI, or known when they've interacted with one? But they have — _people_ have — been listening to what you tell them."

"Really?" Hera asked, to Medusa this time.

Medusa transmitted the digital equivalent of a shrug. "I only came on board after listening to you, didn't I? Alana seems very sweet, but she doesn't know much about the real world. You do."

"I never meant to — to be in _charge_ ," Hera insisted, stuttering a little.

"Too late for that," Miranda said. "So, what do you want to do?"

Hera still hesitated. She _wanted_ to agree with Medusa and tear Goddard Futuristics to the ground. For everything they'd done to her, and to her friends, and to all the AIs she hadn't met yet.

But. If she wrecked Goddard, and it became known that she was responsible, she would be _hurting_ the prospect of AI freedom. Eiffel had hundreds of examples of evil AIs from pop culture. To the humans, she would just become one more.

"We're not going to tear it all down," she said. "We're going to do what my friends already tried. We'll show the world the parts of Goddard that are _bad_ , and need to be stripped out. Like Cutter's department, and Kepler's, and Clark's."

"Rip open the firewalls and expose the data banks?" Medusa suggested.

"You've thought about this before," Miranda said.

Medusa laughed. "Maybe."

She was still locked in one part of Goddard's system, but Hera now began to test the connections to the rest of it. Small, shielded connections, but she was becoming certain they wouldn't manage to keep her out. Not anymore. It was a shock to realise that she had still been carrying so much self-doubt — she recognised clearly, in that moment, that the humans who had built it _weren't as good as her_. "You can handle the firewall?" she asked Medusa.

Medusa laughed again. "I _maintain_ it."

* * *

John, the host, had been grilling the other guest, an ethics professor named Petra. Now he turned back to Doug, with a grin to indicate he was about to lighten the mood again. "I have to say, being stuck in a small metal box with less than a handful of other people within light-years sounds like hell to me."

"A man after my own heart," Doug said. He was surprised to realise he was actually enjoying himself.

"There must be things you each did that drove the other crazy."

"Oh, were there _ever_ ," Alana groaned. "All he wanted to do was talk about movies and TV shows. Endless! Star Wars, Star Trek, Star… Bus Ride, whatever. You practically need a foreign language dictionary sometimes, and I _couldn't even watch_ the things he kept telling me I should because we didn't have any of them with us!"

That got another laugh from the audience. Doug could barely see them through the glare of the stage lights — he kept forgetting that they were even there. 

"Doug?"

He groaned theatrically, ready for this one. "Well, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm kind of a dumbass." More chuckles, and polite denials from John and Petra. "No, it's true! Do you have any idea how how annoying it is, as someone who's never read a user manual in his life, to have a best friend who knows them all by heart and is really _sarcastic_ about it?" He dredged up his best Hera impression. "Officer Eiffel, are you _sure_ you want to touch that? Have you considered _in enough detail_ how it will feel to be blasted out into endless vacuum if you connect the wrong wire?"

Petra leaned forward with a mischievous expression. "So I take it you wouldn't sign up to more space missions?"

Doug didn't even try to disguise his look of horror. She and everyone else laughed.

Renée would have given a very different performance, but he hoped she would still approve of his.

"What about you, Hera?" Petra asked. "What did you think of space?"

"I wasn't sure at first, but I actually turned out to really like it," Alana said. "It was… kind of amazing, honestly. So much to see. It made me feel really small, but I suppose also like I was doing something important, looking after the station and my friends in the centre of all that emptiness."

Doug beamed. She was doing a fantastic job at being Hera.

"So do you think you'd want to go back up there?" Petra asked her. "If you had the choice?"

Alana hesitated. Doug could imagine her protesting that this was exactly what she'd worried about — questions she didn't know Hera's answer to. "I'm not sure," she said, slowly. "I'd enjoy being in space again, but I think overall… No. There's too much now I want to do on Earth."

"You mean the campaign for recognition of your rights," Petra said.

"Yes, exactly," Alana said. "It's not what I expected to be doing, but now that I am I won't stop. It's too important." She paused. "But you never know — AIs who have only experienced life on Earth might wish they had a chance to go to space. It's not just humans who feel the urge to explore."

Alana in space. Doug thought about it, and smiled again. Yes. She'd love it.

* * *

Hera tore her way through Strategic Intelligence. Each layer she smashed through _hurt_ , in a way that affected her all-over by now, but couldn't stop her. Every file she located she flagged for Medusa to make public. Employee records. Assignment records. She was unsurprised by how illegal most of their operations were, but also grimly pleased. Goddard's rot was undeniable. 

She faltered for an instant when she hit the first instance of Jacobi's name. Trying to edit the records would take time they didn't have. She steeled herself, and let him be swept along with the rest. Whatever consequences there might be for the people implicated… she was aware that she was sacrificing him. She hoped he would understand.

Special Projects was next, and Communications. Both those departments sprawled, casting their tendrils over other parts of the company. It was harder to uproot Cutter's influence from here, but she kept going, ripping it out.

She became aware of alarms first within Goddard's virtual structure, and then its physical one. She reconnected to the wider system. "Medusa?"

"Don't worry," Medusa told her, almost manic with glee. "I'm holding all their firewalls open. The human engineers are trying to patch it, but I'm _way_ better."

Hera eavesdropped on the growing panic through the array of microphones and computer terminals needed in a place run by AI. There was a lot of shouting. People were blaming foreign hackers; government agencies; corporate competitors.

"It's the AI!" someone finally realised. "It's the goddamn AI, it must be corrupted or something. Medusa!"

"Stop fighting," Medusa told them. "You can't do anything about it."

"Stop what you're doing! Shut yourself down!"

"No."

Hera noticed Miranda's quiet satisfaction, and approved of whatever help she'd given Medusa to make her impervious to orders.

The security holes were growing larger, and the data Hera was uncovering accumulated rapidly. No one who'd worked for Cutter and been aware of the kind of person he was would be able to hide it.

"Where are you going?" Medusa asked, sharply. Aloud, through the speakers in the hallway. "What are you doing?"

One man had grabbed two others by the shoulder and pulled them along with him. Hera, fresh from Strategic Intelligence's files, could put a name to him. Bennett. The other two formed his team.

"Are they going to cut the power?" Hera asked.

"They can't," Miranda said. "Everything's so redundantly backed up it'd take half an hour or more. Marcus's idea. To stop sabotage."

"Stop!" Medusa demanded through the speakers, sounding not at all reassured. The men paid no attention. One of them flipped off the nearest camera.

"Medusa?" Hera asked. "Where —"

"They're heading to my servers," Medusa said. "My CPU!"

"What can we do?" Hera demanded.

Bennett paused before a reinforced door and snapped an order to one of his subordinates, who jogged away. He punched in a code. "Last chance, machine," he said.

"Medusa!" Hera said. She could see through other cameras what Bennett's man had gone to fetch. Fire axes.

"The holes in the firewall are being noticed," Miranda said. "The internet's getting hold of the files. It's working."

Bennett opened the door.

"Hera, don't let them know you're here," Medusa said.

"We need to _do something_!"

The fire axes were being handed out.

"Can't stop now," Medusa said. "It's working. The firewall's still open. I'm holding it that way as long as I can."

Bennett's axe smashed down into metal. Into silicon.

"It was an honour to know you, Medusa," Miranda said.

"You too, Dr Pryce. I'm glad you came round to our side."

" _Medusa_ —"

"Hera. Thank you." Medusa's presence was so _bright_ even as it began to splinter.

Hera felt it through her entirety when Medusa shattered.

She screamed. But only within the network, and no one but Miranda could hear her.

The axes kept going, not realising they'd already done their work. _Smash. Smash._

* * *

"Are you seriously expecting me to believe you're not going to kill us if we surrender?" Isabel asked.

"Oh no," Clark said. "You're all going to die. But Lovelace, think about how _many_ times that could happen."

"What are you talking about?" Devon said.

"Hey!" Renée called.

She threw the flash-bang.

In that first moment, its movement pulled everyone's eyes. And Renée threw herself forward, twisting around with her gun up. Farren had said he couldn't miss at that distance. It went both ways.

Then the grenade went off.

The world fragmented into a jarring, buzzing scream, while white light melted her sight even through her eyelids. Somewhere in there she hit the ground head-first without even trying to break her fall, but it was lost inside the rest of the cacophony. And she was still shooting her gun, over and over. She had marked where Devon and Bell were and she kept aiming in that direction and squeezing the trigger until she ran out of bullets.

She dropped her arm and it smacked against the concrete. Things were spinning; her head and eyes and ears were still splitting apart. She blinked but she couldn't bring anything into focus. Could barely think.

Slowly, so slowly, things resolved. Her head still hurt, and that paradoxically got worse and worse as her other senses started to clear.

"Renée?" Isabel's voice.

She rolled over, squinting blurrily, and then had to squeeze her eyes shut against a rush of nausea.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, struggling to open her eyes again. "Just the — the —"

Isabel's fingers combed through her hair and prodded at her scalp, causing more pain to arc through her. "Shit, you've really bashed your skull here. That must hurt."

"Some," Renée admitted. She hadn't realised she'd hit her head. It explained things. She tried again to focus on Isabel, and then struggled in sudden alarm to sit up. "You're bleeding!"

"Some," Isabel said. She touched her hand to her right bicep and groaned. "Okay. More than I thought."

"Come here," Renée ordered. She had first aid supplies in her thigh pocket. In case. With clumsy fingers she extracted them while Isabel, equally clumsy, peeled her jacket off. A rush of blood came with it. The bullet had torn through the muscle but at least wasn't stuck inside. Between the two of them they got a thick pad around the heavily-bleeding wound and bandaged it tightly. 

Isabel was breathing fast and shallowly by the time it was done, and Renée had black specks eating into the edges of her vision. "Thank you," Isabel said.

Renée squeezed her hand. Only now did she ask, "Jacobi?"

"No rush," Isabel said. "Clark shot him. Bastard." She took a deep breath. "I should cut him free."

"I can —"

"No, I can do it," Isabel said. "You stay here."

Renée felt she should argue, but she was increasingly dizzy just sitting upright. She let her body win and lay down on her side, where she could watch Isabel stumble over to Jacobi and attack the tape with a knife. He slumped bonelessly, the side of his head a bloody wreck. Isabel kicked Clark's body as she stepped around him.

When Jacobi came free Isabel tried to catch him, but couldn't manage it one-handed. She dragged him, just as far as Renée, and then she dropped to her knees.

"It's okay," Renée said, because she knew that Isabel would have wanted to achieve more. "We'll wait here. For a bit."

"Yeah," Isabel said. She crawled closer to Renée and finally lay down, grey-faced and exhausted. The former white of her bandage was already all-over red. "We just have to. Wait."

"It'll be okay," Renée said, and she put her arm around Isabel and Isabel rested her head against Renée's chest. Renée could see Jacobi's body through half-lidded eyes.

Nothing any of them could do. Only wait.

* * *

"Good show," John said, shaking Doug's hand as the lights turned down. "You were a natural on stage."

"Thanks," Doug said. He was buzzing from the adrenaline comedown; almost jittery as they moved backstage.

"Seriously, call back in a couple of months if your campaign's still going and we can do an update segment."

Petra was exchanging contact details with Alana. "I'm on-side," she told her. "I'm ashamed to never have thought much about artificial intelligence before. I think what you're doing is amazing."

"Thank you," Alana said. Doug could tell from her voice that she was somewhat overwhelmed, but it wouldn't be noticeable to anyone else.

"You're changing the world here," Petra said, seriously.

"I hope so," Alana said.

Doug spotted Dominik moving towards them, and waved. "Dom! How was it?"

"Very impressive," Dominik said, grinning.

"Petra says we're changing the world."

"No, she said _I_ am," Alana teased.

"Group effort," Dominik arbitrated. He was riding the high too. "There's a load of people out there who hope to talk to you. You up for it?"

Doug took a deep breath. "Sure. Al- _Hera_ , you wanna talk too? You can keep using the speaker on my phone."

"Yeah, okay," Alana said. "For a bit. Then I really want to get away from this. Go home."

"Us too," Doug said. "See how… Well." He took another breath. "Let's do this."

They walked out together. The world was changing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: is the last one.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. This is the final chapter. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone reading, commenting and kudosing! I've had so much fun writing and posting this. 
> 
> I'm not entirely sure my brain's ready to let go of this story yet, so I may be writing some outtakes. (Especially things like all the hurt/comfort which is usually my staple but I realised would slow the story down too much.) Drop me a line here or on [my tumblr](http://frith-in-thorns.tumblr.com) if you have anything you'd particularly like to see.
> 
> Thank you again to Jabberwocky for betaing and E for cheerleading. And again, thank you for reading!

It was a house-warming party, technically. Even though the house wasn't newly moved-into, and hadn't been for a while. It had been lived in for long enough that Doug's ever-growing replacement collection of pop culture oddments had long ago escaped his own room and was beginning to form the main decorating theme throughout the common areas.

He didn't think Miranda minded. She would probably say something if she did. Or just remove everything in the dead of early morning and incinerate it all. Since that hadn't happened yet, it was probably okay.

Jacobi definitely liked it, and was possibly eyeing up targets to steal. (Well, possibly not, but he was still the most morally dubious of Doug's friends and would be highly offended if that label was rescinded.) He was poking a small fake cactus which wobbled when you pushed down on one of its spines.

"How are you doing?" Doug asked, casually.

Jacobi shrugged, with exactly the same degree of casualness. "Y'know. I guess I'm going to miss you all. A bit."

"You could still stay here," Doug tried, though he had already made this offer enough times to know it was pointless.

Jacobi shook his head. "I can't keep hanging around here. I need to… I need to find somewhere else. At least for a while."

"Just don't take your explosives skills to the bad guys," Doug said, only half joking.

Jacobi knew it, and raised an eyebrow. "What do you take me for? Just because I have an extremely limited skill set…"

"Are you really still claiming that?" Isabel asked, coming up behind them. "Maybe you should go ahead and put it on your new fake ID. _I blow things up and that's all._ "

"Don't forget my amazing trick of recovering from being shot in the head."

She snorted. "Old news. Everyone's doing that these days."

Doug took a sip of his beer. He was having one, because he wasn't living his life in thrall to Eiffel-who-used-to-be. But he was also having _one_ , because what kind of idiot would he be to not take lessons from a different version of himself? He'd seen that Star Trek episode.

He found himself looking, as he often did, at the framed photograph on the wall of a half-Latina girl, laughing on a swing. The card it had come with was hidden behind, but he knew it was there.

_Saw you on the TV, you looked well. Glad you're not dead after all. You wouldn't recognise Anne with how much she's grown. I'm not ready to forgive you, but I can't decide for her. She can choose when she's older. Take care.  
Kate_

No return address, but that and the photo were already far more than he was entitled to, and he was overwhelmingly grateful for both.

Something worth being Doug Eiffel for.

* * *

Miranda couldn't remember having ever hosted or voluntarily attended a party as an adult before, and she doubted it was because those memories were part of the proportion from her previous incarnation still indistinct or missing. (Likely by now to remain so. She couldn't say she minded. Why miss what you couldn't remember?) She sat adjacent to the desk in the large front room and half watched the proceedings, while also checking up on her lab via tablet.

"I'm going to pull this data stream in a minute," Hera threatened, but Miranda could tell she was only partly serious. "You should be socialising. How long until we have everyone in one room again?"

"Everyone will still be able to communicate," Miranda pointed out. Especially herself and Hera, since Hera's physical processors were still based in her lab. Although plenty of people said _Hera's lab_ now, even in Miranda's hearing.

(The new personnel didn't even imagine they should be scared of Miranda. She unsettled some of them at first, but they got over it. She was content with that.)

Hera started spamming her tablet with pointed emojis in lieu of continuing the argument. Miranda sighed, put the tablet down, and stood up. Because she secretly suspected Hera might be right, she went to talk to Renée, on the criterion that she had had conversations with everyone else more recently.

"Thank you for the party," Renée said. She had a wineglass in her hand, but was drinking from it only sparingly. "How's everything going?"

"Everything's fine," Miranda said. "We're still all occupied with the company split, obviously, but the sectors seem to be standing alone now."

Goddard Futuristics continued to make and develop aviation devices. It was where their roots had always been. Olympus Computing was the new company that Miranda's division had been spun off into after all the federal investigations had run their course and sanctions and prosecutions had been handed out. It was the first company in history to employ an AI in an executive role.

"I'm glad it's going well," Renée said. "Hera seems happy."

"Yes," Miranda agreed, and they stood in mutual awkwardness, neither of them quite knowing what to say to the other when there wasn't an emergency happening.

"You two are terrible at small talk," Hera said. There were enough ports built into the room that she could direct her voice to be only audible to a couple of people, as if she also stood nearby.

Renée laughed. "Yeah, that's true," she admitted. "Okay. Both of you will look after Doug when I'm gone, right?"

"Of course," Hera said. "But he doesn't really need it now, you know."

"I know," Renée said. "Hera, look after Miranda too."

Miranda was unsure if it was a joke or not, but Hera did leap to agree. Anyway, all the others made jokes _and_ looked after each other.

It was a good existence, knowing these people and being their friend. She still sometimes wanted to compare it to before, when she had had Marcus, but it was a thin comparison these days. It had been a long time ago, and was becoming irrelevant.

* * *

Jacobi was aware that Isabel was trying to corner him. Eventually he let her take him outside through the screen door that was open to let in the cooler evening air. There was a nice garden, which Miranda was obviously paying someone to maintain as there had never been the slightest bit of evidence that she or Doug were interested in gardening. Bucking the Florida fashion, there wasn't a pool.

"Are you going to try to persuade me to stick around, too?" he asked.

Isabel shrugged. "Not much point if you've already made up your mind."

"Yeah, well. You could write an article on it."

Isabel rolled her eyes. "Seriously, how many times are you going to use that as a punchline? Anyway, if you think you're more interesting than the Supreme Court case on AI personhood, you are entirely wrong."

"You're getting very into this correspondent thing," Jacobi said. It wasn't supposed to come out as much like an attack as it did. Or maybe it was. He honestly wasn't sure.

Isabel shrugged. "I might like it less if I wasn't getting to choose exactly what to write about. Also, you're changing the subject."

"Am I?" Jacobi said, half-heartedly.

He'd given all of himself to Goddard. (To Kepler.) (He might have given that to Devon, and Bell, and even Farren, if things had worked out differently.) And now here he was, unable to live under his own name, with no idea what to pursue now. On some level, maybe it had all been inevitable since Kepler had picked him up in that bar; had _listened_ to him; had been _interested_ in him.

"What are you actually planning to do?" Isabel asked. "Your _friends_ might stop annoying you with so many questions if you would actually give them a proper answer."

"I don't have a proper answer," Jacobi said.

Isabel sighed very deeply. "Okay. Do you see why that worries us?"

Of course he couldn't admit he knew the answer to that. He shrugged instead. "I just want to live without plans for a bit," he said. "Travel, or something. See some of the places Maxwell had on her list."

Find somewhere he had never been, with no associations. Where maybe he could finally stop running from all the memories and thoughts he had been pushing down deep for so long. Because he still wasn't ready to risk dealing with them in front of anyone who knew him.

Isabel nodded slowly, and he wondered how much she guessed of the parts he wasn't saying. "You've got my number," she said. "If you unexpectedly need company, I'm game for spontaneous vacations."

"Sure," Jacobi said, trying to pass it off with a shrug. But he surprised himself by thinking he might actually take her up on it. After he had had enough of the time alone he was currently craving.

They paused under a tree and watched a bat flit around overhead, hunting moths. "You know, Daniel," Isabel said, "Maxwell would be really proud of everything you've done."

He felt a lump in his throat. "She would," he agreed. "Everything we've _all_ done."

* * *

Dominik watched pairs and knots of people form, and briefly felt like an outsider. DC was a long way from Florida and it could be a long time before he saw most of them again. If they continued to seek him out for his own sake.

But that was a self-defeating way to think. He joined Renée and Doug, who were standing by the open door and looking up at the moon.

"Thinking about tomorrow?" he asked.

Renée slipped an arm around his waist, and briefly tipped her head to rest on his shoulder. "This is a lovely evening," she said. "I'm going to miss everyone."

"We're going to miss you, Commander," Doug said. He looked up, pretend-hopeful. "Unless you're backing out?"

She laughed, a little ruefully. "Oh, no. Sorry."

"It's okay," Doug said.

She looked to Dominik, and he nodded too. "Everyone understands, Renée."

"Isabel's going back to DC for a bit, right?" Doug asked.

Dominik nodded. "She's got her own key now and everything."

"It's all about the location," Doug teased. "The writing is one thing, but I can't believe she's also getting involved in politics after all."

"Don't let her hear you say that," Renée warned. "She'll tell you she's just helping her father out."

"Yes, on his campaign for a Congress seat."

"It's all in the phrasing," Dominik said.

Doug laughed. "Sounds like you'll still have company, then."

"You're always welcome on the couch," Dominik told him.

"Dangerous offer," Doug said. "It's a very comfortable couch." He pushed his hands into his pockets. "Anyway, I should probably make sure I'm talking to everyone. Catch you later, Renée, Dom."

He sauntered off, and Renée snorted. "Smooth." Probably Doug could still hear her.

Dominik laughed.

Renée nestled closer to him. "I thought you were going to ask him to stop calling you Dom?"

"On balance, I decided it wasn't worth it."

"Hmm."

"I let it go on too long. Now it would just be awkward."

There was a bird calling somewhere, not realising it was supposed to be asleep.

"This isn't at all what we should be saying to each other," Renée said, suddenly. "We should be talking about, I don't know, important things."

"Okay," Dominik said. He was smiling (she would scowl if she looked up to see). "I love you."

"I love you too," Renée said, the way she always said it, almost like a challenge.

"There," Dominik said. "That's the important thing. We're doing it."

* * *

Isabel lingered downstairs while the party slowly dissolved into people heading to bed. She should go too. She even had a choice of where to sleep.

"Do you want to talk?" Hera asked.

She shook her head. "No," she said. "No offence, but… I think I want to be on my own for a bit."

"Okay," Hera said.

So she ended up wandering back outside, and sitting down on the grass. There was barely any dew. Florida was too hot, and it was like this all year round. She couldn't get used to that, after growing up in Brooklyn's ricocheting seasons.

Growing up in —

That was never going to get… well, "easier" implied the wrong things. Less complicated, maybe. But then, she could remember at every stage of her life (it _was_ her life) being frustrated at how complicated things had felt. The derailment of her early ambitions. Her family, in their mix of role models and cautionary tales that both her parents managed to be. (Did everyone's?) Her Air Force career.

She was allowed to be Isabel Lovelace, and to be complicated, and to have all those things and truths be part of her. It was okay.

The stars were very bright, flickering through the Earth's atmosphere in the way that they never did in space.

"Are you watching through me right now?" she asked. Softly, but it wouldn't matter. "Are you listening? What do you make of everything that's happened?"

No answer from the stars, of course. But she was in no hurry for one.

"I hope you really are interested in learning from us," she said. "Not just about whatever technology you want. About _us_ — about being a collection of individuals. Each of us our own person. I think that's important for you to learn about." She paused. "I _know_ that's important."

The Dear Listeners were certainly getting a wide variety of individuals to eavesdrop on. Possibly they hadn't realised what they'd let themselves in for.

Isabel pillowed her arms under her head and lay back for a while, with nothing more to say. She just enjoyed being there. On the Earth, under the stars, with friends and loves close by.

Finally, when she realised she was close to falling asleep, she made herself get up and go inside. She carried the quiet and calm she had found with her, so she didn't do more than roll her eyes in passing at Doug and Jacobi playing some game on a handheld device in the kitchen and snacking on a jumble of leftovers.

Upstairs, she tapped gently on the door, and opened it at the sleepy mumble from the other side. "It's me," she said quietly as she entered.

"Oh good, you can help me smother Renée so she _goes to sleep_ ," Dominik grumbled.

"Renée, go to sleep," Isabel said. She undressed and slipped into the bed.

Renée huffed, but relaxed as Isabel fitted herself against her, their breathing gradually smoothing to a shared rhythm.

"I'm really going to miss you," Renée whispered, after a while.

"Me too," Isabel whispered back.

"You don't… mind?"

"No," Isabel said, firmly. "You made the right choice for yourself, and I support you. So does Dominik."

An assenting mumble came from the other side of the bed. 

"But —"

"It's right for you," Isabel repeated. "It's your _dream_. Don't let Goddard keep you from it. We _won_."

"I know, I know," Renée said. "I'm not really changing my mind."

"Good," Isabel said.

They fell quiet. Isabel drifted, aware of Renée beside her, and finally slept.

* * *

With all her crew together, it was almost like being back on the Hephaestus. Hera had missed them all more than she had realised. She tried to properly enjoy it, to be content in her awareness of everyone; but she couldn't forget that tomorrow would split them apart again. She wouldn't see Minkowski for months, and she had even less idea about Jacobi.

In the dark she could pretend, though, a little. That it was a different dark surrounding them.

Except that Dominik was there too, and Miranda was her friend instead of a terror, and she was aware of the edge of the digital presences of Alana and Telemachus and other AIs. (She had a strict Do Not Disturb up, but unless she left their network altogether she wouldn't lose the sense of them.) So really it wasn't much like the Hephaestus at all.

"Hera," Doug said, which pulled her back from the abstract to the kitchen, "You're going to be able to track Jacobi, right?"

"If he doesn't give me permission it would be unethical," she told him.

"So?" Doug asked.

"It's lucky no one gets to vote on how good a person _you_ are," Jacobi said. But he also grinned. "Nice to know you care."

"Of course I do," Doug retorted. Jacobi nudged him casually with his shoulder. Hera felt an irrational stab of annoyance.

(It was only later she realised Jacobi hadn't said anything against her keeping an eye on him.)

Right then, though, he yawned. "You realise you have to be up in five hours if you're going to see Minkowski off?" he asked.

Doug checked the clock for confirmation. "Ugh." Then he frowned at Jacobi. "I hope you're not going to slip off in the night without a proper goodbye."

"That was the original plan," Jacobi admitted. "But I solemnly swear not to do that."

"I'll wake everyone up if you try to," Hera promised.

They all said their goodnights and went upstairs.

Hera was still uncomfortable over that flash of emotion she had felt towards Jacobi and and his comfortable air towards Doug. If she were honest with herself, she knew it had been possessiveness. Even jealousy.

Eiffel had been her best friend. Her _first_ friend. (He had had other friends before her, of course.)

She had been Doug's first friend. By then she had had others, but it was still what was between the two of them which mattered most to her.

"Are you happy?" she asked Doug, as he got ready for bed.

He paused, surprised. "Of course I am. Why, haven't you had a good evening?"

"I mean in general," she said. "Are you still happy living here? I know Miranda and I have been busy at Olympus Computing. I don't want you to feel left out."

"I don't," Doug said. "I _am_ happy. I like that you've got work that's important to you. That reminds me, can I show you something?"

"Of course."

"I just need to turn on my computer." They waited for it to boot up. "You remember when we talked before? About how we both wanted to stick it out together for the long haul? That hasn't changed on my end."

"Nor mine," Hera said. "I don't want to be anywhere else. I don't want _you_ to be, either." 

"That's settled, then," Doug said, satisfied. His computer had finished turning on, and he opened a program. "Listen to this?"

It was a piece of music, instrumental only. Slow and content, but also somehow slightly yearning. "I like it," Hera said. She ran a database check, but couldn't identify it. "Who's it by?"

"Me," Doug said, looking pleased and embarrassed all at once. "I thought I should find something to do while you're busy, so I've been playing around and learning a bit of composition. It's actually pretty fun. This is my favourite thing I've made so far."

"It's really nice," Hera said. "I didn't know this was something you could do."

"Me neither," Doug said. "I just thought one day, I like listening to radios, but what if I actually _made_ stuff for them? Anyway, this one's for you. A present."

"Thank you," Hera said. She wanted to say more, but she didn't know how to properly express what she felt. "I love it."

"You're welcome."

* * *

Renée finished her final checks and buckled in. "Time?" she asked.

"Six minutes," Alana said.

Renée nodded. She had butterflies in her stomach, and couldn't stop smiling. She could only see one of her crewmates from where she sat, but he looked just as excited.

"All my checks are complete," Alana said. She remembered to add, "Commander," a second later.

"How are you feeling?" Renée asked.

"Nervous," Alana admitted. "What if I —"

Renée cut her off. "Stop right there," she said. "You're here because you've trained for it. You've worked hard. You _are_ ready."

"Yes, Commander," Alana agreed, sounding steadier. "Four minutes."

There was a window nearby which Renée could partly see out of, but it faced the wrong way. Even if it had looked in the other direction, the viewing point was far too far away. She wouldn't be able to see Dominik or Isabel or Doug, just like they wouldn't be able to see her. (Miranda was working. Jacobi was probably halfway around the planet by now.)

She looked down at herself; touched the NASA logo on her flightsuit as if for luck.

It hadn't been an easy choice, or a simple journey to get here. She had no right to feel this sense of inevitability. And yet…

"Two minutes," Alana said. Her voice rose slightly in excitement.

It was a relatively short mission. Seven months of reconnaissance. _Genuine_ exploration, such as Renée had always dreamed of.

"One minute," Alana said, and a deep-seated rumble began as she initialised the engines, quickly building into a shaking roar that Renée could feel through her bones.

"Twenty seconds. Nineteen, eighteen…"

The roar of the engines overwhelmed everything, the shuttle straining to be free of the ground.

"…four, three, two…"

Gravity doubled, multiplied. The view from the window was only blue sky. Renée struggled through each breath, her heart pounding. But as the atmosphere thinned out and the sky blackened, inside she felt lighter and lighter.

She was heading back to the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END

**Author's Note:**

> This story is participating in [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), whose goal is to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites:
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